William Fisk Brewer was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on August 26, 1870. He grew up in Iowa and graduated from Grinnell College in 1891. He taught in Oregon and Illinois before he joined the faculty of the Montana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (later Montana State College) in 1895 as a professor of Greek and Latin. During a leave of absence from the college in 1898 he earned a master’s degree from Harvard University. He eventually became the head of the college English department until his retirement in 1942. Brewer was active in the Montana Education Association during his time in Montana, serving as a delegate to several meetings of the organization. He was also an advocate for the blind and helped organize the annual summer program for blind at Montana State College. Brewer and his wife Mabel moved to Lodi, California after his retirement and he died there on June 14, 1963.
The William F. Brewer papers consist of two folders that primarily document his involvement with the Montana Education Association, although a few personal items have been included. The correspondence folder contains letters to and from Brewer to the Montana Education Association leadership and other education associations elsewhere, as well as a few personal notes and greeting cards, 1929-1962. The documents folder contains minutes, publications, and other printed or mimeographed material pertaining to the Montana Education Association from1929-1939 and two typewritten reports from Brewer regarding his experiences at the Montana Education Association meetings in 1936 and 1937.
This collection is open for research.
Letters and documents created or collected by William F. Brewer pertaining to the Montana Education Association were transferred to Special Collections from the University Archives around 1980.
This collection was processed 2017 July 25