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John Nicholas Brown II (February 21, 1900 - October 10, 1979) was the United States Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR) from 1946 to 1949. He was a member of the Brown family that had been active in American life since before the American Revolution and who were the major early benefactors of Brown University. ==Biography== He was born in New York City on February 21, 1900 to John Nicholas Brown I, who died on May 1 of the same year, and Natalie Bayard (Dresser) Brown (1869 - 1950) who was the daughter of Civil War Veteran and civil engineer Brevet Major (George Warren Dresser ) and Elizabeth Stuyvesant LeRoy. Brown grew up in Newport, Rhode Island and attended St. George's School, from which he graduated in 1918. Brown served briefly in the United States Navy during the closing days of the First World War as a seaman. He then attended Harvard College, from which he received a bachelor's degree in 1922 and a master's degree in 1928. Brown inherited a large fortune from both his father and uncle. (In 1957, ''Fortune'' magazine reported that his net worth was between $75 million and $100 million.) In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Brown took control of his family's real estate and textiles businesses, beginning new enterprises and streamlining others. Upon attaining his majority in 1921, Brown succeeded his father as an hereditary member of the Rhode Island Society of the Cincinnati by right of his descent from his great great granduncle Major Simeon Thayer. 〔Members of the Society of the Cincinnati. William Sturgis Thomas. 1929. pg. 146.〕 One of Brown's first acts of philanthropy was in 1924 to finance the construction of the large and ornate chapel at St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island. It is said he did this so that the students would no longer have to walk two miles to go to church on Sundays. In 1930, he met and married Anne Seddon Kinssolving, a society reporter working for the ''Baltimore News''. She was an avid collector of material related to military uniforms and donated the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection to Brown University in 1981. Brown was appointed to the board of directors of the (Rhode Island Foundation ) in 1930 and served on it until his resignation in 1972. His 42 year tenure on the board was the longest in the Foundation's history. The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest philanthropic foundation in the state of Rhode Island. In 1938 Brown built a house on Fishers Island, New York named Windshield. The house was of a modern design by Richard Neutra and was completed in August 1938. The house was revolutionary in that it had rubber floors, aluminium frame windows and two Buckminster Fuller designed Dymaxion bathrooms. Brown donated the house to the Fishers Island Club in 1963 and it was later sold to Michael Laughlin. The housed burned down on New Year's Eve 1973. Near the end of World War II, Brown was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel and worked for the United States Army in Europe as Special Cultural Advisor for the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA) as well as Chief of Monuments of the U.S. Group Control Council. After the war, he helped supervise the return of art treasures stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners. The work of the MFAA is depicted in the movie ''The Monuments Men''. Early in 1946, President of the United States Harry S. Truman nominated Brown as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR) and Brown held this office from January 12, 1946 until March 8, 1949. He was a delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1948. After his government service, Brown settled in Providence, Rhode Island as a senior fellow of Brown University. He served the university in a number of capacities for 49 years, including a stint as chairman of the university's building and planning committee, in which capacity he oversaw the building of a number of Brown University's buildings. He was also a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and in 1975 was awarded the Smithsonian's Joseph Henry Medal for his cultural leadership. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Nicholas Brown II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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