When the Century Was Young

Brown, Dee

ISBN 10: 0874832675 / ISBN 13: 9780874832679

Published by August House Publishers, Inc, LIttle Rock, AR, 1993

About this Item

223 p. Illustrations. Dee Brown wrote one of the 20th century's most important histories, the 6-million copy bestseller Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Now, with a natural storyteller's flair, he offers a fascinating look at both this century and his own colorful life as an important American writer. [Dorris Alexander] "Dee" Brown was an American novelist and historian. His most famous work is 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee', published in 1970, detailing the violent relationship between Native Americans and American expansionism. This work led to further appreciation of the Native American culture by the common American, and caused a new look at the history of the American west, from the Native American point of view. Born in Alberta, Louisiana, Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas and Little Rock, Arkansas, where he became friends with many Native Americans who made him realize that the portrayals of their people in American movies was not the true story. He worked as a reporter in Harrison, Arkansas, then became a teacher and librarian. He was a librarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1934 to 1942 and for the War Department after serving in the army in World War II. From 1948 to 1972, he was an agriculture librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he had gained a master's degree in library science and became professor. In 1973, he retired back in Arkansas and devoted his time to writing. When "Bury My Heart" was published, many readers assumed that he was of Indian heritage, but in fact he was not. He did however come from a family with deep frontier history. He wrote several novels during his life, the first being Wave High the Banner, a fictionalized account of the life of Davy Crockett (who was an acquaintance of his great-grandfather). He wrote over a dozen books, including several for children, before 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' came out. From Wikipedia: "Dorris Alexander "Dee" Brown (February 29, 1908 December 12, 2002) was an American novelist and historian. His most famous work, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970) details some of the violence and oppression suffered by Native Americans at the hands of American expansionism.Born in Alberta, Louisiana, a sawmill town, Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas, which experienced an oil boom when he was thirteen. Brown's mother later relocated to Little Rock so he and his brother and two sisters could attend a better high school. The public library became his second home. Reading the three-volume History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark helped him develop an abiding interest in the American West. He also discovered the works of Sherwood Anderson and John Dos Passos, and later William Faulkner and Joseph Conrad. He cited these authors as those most influential on his own work. While attending home games by the Arkansas Travelers baseball team, he became acquainted with Moses Yellowhorse, a pitcher. His kindness, and a childhood friendship with a Creek boy, caused Brown to reject the portrayals of Indian peoples as violent and backward, which dominated American popular culture at the time. He worked as a printer and reporter in Harrison, Arkansas, and decided to continue his education at Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway, Arkansas. His mentor, the history professor Dean D. McBrien, helped set him on the road to becoming a writer. They traveled west along with other students on two occasions in a Model T Ford. On campus Brown worked as editor of the student newspaper and held a student assistantship in the library. The latter convinced him that he should become a librarian. So, in the middle of the Great Depression, he set out for George Washington University in Washington, D.C. for graduate study. Brown worked part-time for J. Willard Marriott, took classes, and married Sally Stroud (another graduate of Arkansas State Teachers College drawn to Washington by the New Deal). Eventually he.

Seller Inventory # 66975

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When the Century Was Young
• Publisher: August House Publishers, Inc, LIttle Rock, AR
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874832675
• ISBN 13: 9780874832679
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Journalists
  • Newspapers

About this title

Synopsis

The author shares his memories of growing up in Arkansas, his education and military service, his fascination with the American West, and his devotion to writing

Reviews

In this graceful memoir, Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , offers quiet, warmhearted anecdotes about his youth in the South and his early evolution as a writer. Born in 1908, he was five when his family moved to Stephens, Ala. It was a quiet town, but by the time Brown was 12, the discovery of oil had turned Stephens into a haven for flimflam artists whom he learned to ape. His schoolteacher grandmother, however, so pricked his taste for print, that young Dee scraped together $25 to buy a hand printing press. Almost inevitably, it seems, he began to write, selling his first adventure story at 17. He learned journalism at a small-town Arkansas paper a year later, and, after acquiring his passion for the West from his favorite professor at Arkansas State Teachers College, he wrote his first western in 1942. The memoir ends in the '50s, thereby missing Brown's mature writing career, which is mentioned only in an epilogue. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Less a memoir than a handful of experiences shaped into short vignettes. Western novelist and historian Brown (Conspiracy of Knaves, 1987; Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 1971, etc.) turns to his own colorful past for material in this engaging account. From his small-town Louisiana and Arkansas origins to his lengthy career as an agricultural librarian at the University of Illinois, Brown has seen most of the 20th century, his memories reflecting to a considerable degree the vast changes wrought in America during this time. Working at the age of 12 as an occasional letter-carrier for the Post Office, Brown witnessed the oil boom in southern Arkansas before moving into the heart of the Ozarks for his first newspaper job. A degree in library science from George Washington University offered few employment prospects during the Depression, so, with the onset of WW II, the author found himself a soldier, albeit one in privileged circumstances as a participant in the Army's Specialized Training Program. Forgotten, along with his unit, for a year while he studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown eventually served as a librarian near Washington, until the military's combination of cold war hysteria and hypocrisy prompted him to return to civilian life. At the University of Illinois, Brown befriended a personable Pakistani who wanted to use an American education to rise above his caste back home, and, on another occasion, the author found himself in a comic situation at the Missouri Botanic Gardens; throughout his narrative, self-effacement triumphs (reference to his bestsellers and other books is limited to a four-page epilogue). Fragments of a life that are told easily and with charm; as a whole, however, the narrative is much less than the sum of its parts. (Twenty-three b&w photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.