Richard H. Brown

Richard H. Brown died on January 16, 2019. Brown, a distinguished historian, educator, and mentor, was the academic vice president of the Newberry Library from 1983 to 1994. Brown directed the Amherst Project—an initiative to train history teachers how to use primary source material—and is credited with creating many of the innovative research and education programs found at the Newberry Library today. He wrote numerous well-received works, including The Hero and the People: The Meaning of Jacksonian Democracy (1964) and “The Ideal Library of the Continent”: Public Goals and Research in the Founding of the Newberry (2008).