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Brown, Walter Folger

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Walter Folger fōlˈjər [key], 1869–1961, American cabinet officer, b. Massillon, Ohio. A lawyer of Toledo, Ohio, he became prominent in Republican politics and was (1927–29) Assistant Sec...

Brown, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Robert, 1773–1858, Scottish botanist and botanical explorer. In 1801 he went as a naturalist on one of Matthew Flinders's expeditions to Australia, returning (1805) to England with valuable c...

Brown, Michael Stuart

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Michael Stuart, 1941–, American molecular geneticist, b. New York City, M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1966. He worked (1968–71) as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health before goi...

Brown, Benjamin Gratz

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Benjamin Gratz, 1826–85, U.S. Senator (1863–67) and governor of Missouri (1871–73), b. Lexington, Ky. An able lawyer in St. Louis, Brown was a leader in the Free-Soil movement in Missouri...

Brown, Samuel Robbins

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Samuel Robbins, 1810–80, American missionary and educator, b. East Windsor, Conn. As a missionary (1839–47) to China, he took charge of a school founded by the Morrison Educational Associat...

Brown, Herbert Charles

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Herbert Charles, 1912–2004, American chemist, b. London, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Wayne State Univ. (1943–47) and Purdue Univ. (1947–78), he shared the 1979 Nobel Priz...

Brown, William Wells

(Encyclopedia)Brown, William Wells, 1814–84, African-American abolitionist, writer, and doctor, b. near Lexington, Ky. Born into slavery, the child of a black slave mother and a white slaveholding father, Brown f...

brown recluse spider

(Encyclopedia)brown recluse spider or violin spider, poisonous nocturnal spider, Loxoceles reclusa, most common in the SE and S central United States. Adults are 3⁄8 in. (10 mm) long and are light brown with a da...

Brown, Jacob Jennings

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Jacob Jennings, 1775–1828, American general, b. Bucks co., Pa. In the War of 1812 he defeated (May, 1813) a British attempt to take Sackets Harbor, N.Y., and the next year became commander of...

Brown, Charles Brockden

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Charles Brockden, 1771–1810, American novelist and editor, b. Philadelphia, considered the first professional American novelist. After the publication of Alcuin: A Dialogue (1798), he wrote s...