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Ashmun Norris Brown Scrapbooks, 1890-1946

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Brown, Ashmun Norris, 1872-1948
Title
Ashmun Norris Brown Scrapbooks
Dates
1890-1946 (inclusive)
Quantity
36 scrapbooks., (10 linear feet of shelf space.)
Collection Number
Cage 54
Summary
Clippings of Brown's output of newspaper articles, stories, features and regular columns as Washington correspondent for Seattle and Providence (Rhode Island) newspapers. Provides close examination of Washington State and Rhode Island congressional delegations as well as coverage of naval affairs, the Department of Interior, the Territory of Alaska, and personalities in politics and government. Also a small amount of personal material, including photographs, correspondence, and memorabilia.
Repository
Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Terrell Library Suite 12
Pullman, WA
99164-5610
Telephone: 509-335-6691
mascref@wsu.edu
Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research use.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Biographical Note

The son of a pioneer Seattle newspaperman, Ashmun Brown began his career in journalism in 1890 as a reporter in Seattle. For the next fifteen years he held reporting and editorial positions with newspapers in Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, Victoria, Spokane, Butte and Anaconda. From 1905 to 1907 he was Private Secretary to Governor Albert Mead of Washington, after which he relocated at Washington, D.C., beginning his career as a capitol reporter. He left reporting in 1910 and 1911 to serve as Private Secretary to Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger and, after a short interlude as a periodical editor, returned to reporting the news of the national capitol for his former employer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

From 1914 until his retirement in the early 1940's, Brown was the Washington Bureau correspondent successively for the Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Times and the Providence (R.I.) Journal and Evening Bulletin. During this time he wrote about 25,000 stories, features and columns. His reporting tended to reflect his Republican connections in Washington, but was characterized by a proper journalistic non-partisanship. His coverage of national administrations of both political parties and of the Washington and Rhode Island delegations to Congress, both having members of each party, was quite complete. This thoroughness of reporting earned him a citation from the Pulitzer Prize Committee in 1936.

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Content Description

This collection consists of scrapbooks of clippings of journalist Ashmun Norris Brown's output of newspaper articles, stories, features and regular columns as Washington correspondent for Seattle and Providence (Rhode Island) newspapers. His stories offer close examination of Washington State and Rhode Island congressional delegations, as well as coverage of naval affairs, the Department of Interior, the Territory of Alaska, and personalities in politics and government. The collection also includes a small amount of personal material, including photographs, correspondence, and memorabilia.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

[Item Description]. Cage 54, Ashmun Norris Brown Scrapbooks . Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The 35 scrapbooks of news stories are arranged in three chronological series. Series 1, 1914-1923, contains Brown's stories as the Washington correspondent of the two Seattle newspapers. Series 2, 1920-1942, consists of the stories and columns he wrote for the Providence papers. Series 3 contains two scrapbooks of stories written 1916-1917, some of which were carried by the Washington, D.C., Star. Series 4 is a scrapbook with a mixture of personal and professional items, 1890-1946.

Acquisition Information

The news stories of Ashmun Brown (1872-1948), Washington D. C. journalist, were acquired by Washington State University Library In 1958 as a gift from Mr. Brown's nephew, Nat Brown of Yakima, Washington.In 2014, Dennis Holzman Antiques donated two additional scrapbooks (MS.2014.24): Brown's final volume of stories (item 32.1), and a scrapbook of memorabilia, correspondence, photographs, and clippings (items 35.1-35.4).

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Detailed Description of the Collection

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.

Finding aid prepared by Lawrence Stark
1972

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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