Lewis H. Brown
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Born in Creston, Iowa on February 13, 1894, Lewis Harold Brown became a passionate and highly respected industrialist. He attended the University of Iowa in 1915.
Lewis H. Brown served in France as an infantry captain during World War I. After the war, Brown worked for Montgomery Ward and was promoted to Assistant General Operating Manager in only eight years.
When T.F. Merseles, the President of Montgomery Ward, left in 1928 to become President of the Johns-Manville Corporation, an asbestos manufacturer in the United States, he took Lewis H. Brown with him. In 1930, Merseles died suddenly and Lewis H. Brown was appointed President at age 35 -- the youngest man ever to hold that position in the company's history.
On April 3, 1939, Lewis H. Brown was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, with the caption "Businessman Brown -- Public Relations Begins at Home."
During World War II, Lewis H. Brown served as an advisor to General Levin Campbell.
In running the most productive and energetic company he possibly could, Brown may have prioritized profits over the health and safety of his employees. According to testimony given in a federal court, in the early 1940s Brown said that the managers of another asbestos company were "a bunch of fools for notifying employees who had asbestosis." When one of the managers asked, "Do you mean to tell me you would let them work until they dropped dead?" the response is reported to have been, "Yes. We save a lot of money that way."[1]
After World War II, at the request of General Lucius D. Clay, Lewis H. Brown wrote a book entitled "A Report on Germany" (Farrar, Straus and Company, New York, 1947), which served as a detailed recommendation for the reconstruction of post-war Germany, and served as a basis for the Marshall Plan. General Clay selected Lewis H. Brown to write "A Report on Germany" because of Brown's broad industrial and war experience.
Brown founded the American Enterprise Association (AEA) in New York, a think tank which later moved to Washington, D.C., and was renamed the American Enterprise Institute. He served as AEA's chairman until his death. Brown also cofounded the Tax Foundation and served as chairman.
Lewis H. Brown died in 1951 at age 57, in Delray, Florida.
[edit] References
- ^ Testimony of Charles H. Roemer, Deposition taken April 25, 1984, Johns-Manville Corp., et al v. the United States of America, U.S. Claims Court Civ. No. 465-83C, cited in Barry I. Castleman, Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, 4th edition, Aspen Law and Business, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1996, p.581
