Draft:John Elward Brown

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John Elward Brown Sr.
Brown in 1897
Born	(1879-04-02)April 2, 1879 Oskaloosa, Iowa
Died	February 12, 1957(1957-02-12) (aged 77) San Diego, California
Occupations	Evangelist Founder of John Brown University
Spouse	Juanita Arrington Brown ​ ​ (m. 1900)​
Children	5, including John Brown, Jr.

John Elward Brown (April 2, 1879– February 12, 1957) can be a lead-in to the subject's popular name. Describe the subject's nationality and profession(s) in which the subject is most notable. Provide a description of the subject's major contributions in the immediately relevant field(s) of notable expertise.

Brown's career was a virtuous circle of these elements, each of which promoted and reinforced growth in the others:

• Evangelism
• Schools
• (Other)
• Radio
• Publications

Early life

Brown was born the fifth of nine children, and grew up in Center Point, Iowa. His mother, Julia Ann Brammer, was from a Quaker pioneer family and is father, John Franklin Brown, was also a Quaker who had been injured when serving as a Sergeant in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The father worked as a farmer, and the family lived in poverty because his war injury made it difficult for him to do the physically taxing work of farming, and his military pension was very meager. At 11 years old, John Elward Brown left school and began working full-time at a variety of low-paying labor jobs to help support the family.

When he was 17, his older brother bought an apple farm in Rogers, Arkansas, and the two of them moved there. In addition to working on the farm, Brown cut timber for railroad ties and broke up limestone for a lime kiln. One evening, he attended a Salvation Army revival meeting, and after attending several meetings he made a public profession of faith (at that time in the United States, the Salvation Army was a nondenominational organization). Three months later, the Salvation Army trained him to be a full-time worker for them. They sent him to nearby Siloam Springs, Arkansas to establish an outpost there, then to Denison, Texas. When the US declared war on Spain, Brown immediately enlisted as a bugler for the US Army and went to boot camp in Texas before the war ended. He then returned to the Salvation Army work, in Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas.

Evangelism

John Elward Brown, circa 1905

As an itinerant preacher, Brown traveled across the United States conducting revivals, which were sometimes sponsored by churches to revive the fervor of Christians and promote a sense of personal salvation as well as to convert people. The Salvation Army and Methodists conducted revivals in the South with camp meetings, tent revivals, and brush arbor revivals. Evangelists traveled circuits and local newspaper reporters gave them monikers; Brown was "The Laughing Evangelist". Reportedly, he was known for sermons that were sincere and sympathetic and for a countenance that was happy and wholesome.

1899–1905

Brown held his first revival meeting in January 1899 at Gravette, Arkansas. It lasted three weeks and he was paid a total of $3.65 (equivalent to $136 in 2024). He would later quip, "I don't know but that I was slightly overpaid." Nonetheless, that year his revivals grew big enough that he traveled with his own 800-person tent and a person to lead songs, and that year he held fifteen union revival meetings (that is, revivals in which multiple Christian denominations, preachers, and speakers came together to participate cooperatively) in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Iowa.

Brown continued to hold revivals toward the end of this period, but from 1902-1905 he was also president of Scarritt Collegiate Institute and began his first publishing business.

1905–1919

In this period, Brown held larger revivals and increasingly focused on California. It is also at this time that he became acquainted with prominent, wealthy, or politically connected people who would continue to help him when he began founding schools.

Brown held revivals in the larger cities of central and southern United States, such as Houston, St. Louis, and Kansas City. In 1911, he started holding revivals in California where he was very popular, especially with the annual Methodist revivals at Huntington Beach, California, where attendees would pitch white tents for the weeks-long event. Thousands of people showed up for his revivals, and in towns that did not have a stadium big enough, they would construct tabernacles. (In this context, a tabernacle was an auditorium with sawdust floors used for revivals).

During these revivals, Brown met wealthy businessmen who would help with his schools later. One of them was William Waterhouse, a real estate developer and building contractor from the wealthy Smith-Waterhouse dynasty who was also a former mayor of Pasadena, California. In 1914, Waterhouse offered to build tabernacles ahead of Brown's revivals for the cities that needed them. Two hundred volunteers would help erect the tabernacle, which was made of 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) of lumber and held 2,000 seats.

Another influential person met during the revivals and involved in Brown's later ventures was Jesse H. Jones, a Houston businessman, philanthropist, and later high-ranking government official. Jones was converted in one of Brown's revivals in Tyler, Texas in 1905; he remained Brown's friend and gave financial support through the years.

In 1919, he held revivals in Vancouver, British Columbia, and met young people who wanted to work for churches or as evangelists but could not afford college for formal training. This is when he decided to establish an institute where students could work while learning and receive free education.

Methodist Episcopal Church, South

Scarritt Collegiate Institute, Neosho, Missouri

Main article: Scarritt College

In 1902, for a few years, he was President of Scarritt Collegiate Institute in Neosho, Missouri. Notably, at age 23 he was the youngest person to become a college president.

The Methodist Episcopal Church established the school but didn't continue funding, so it was faltering. Brown was in Neosho for a revival, and offered to finance the school if they made him president and if they repaired the buildings. Brown later admitted that he didn't have the experience and knowledge to be successful as a college president at that time. The school continued to decline and in 1905 Brown stepped down and moved with his family to Siloam Springs, Arkansas and continued evangelizing and publishing.

While he was there, though, he became concerned that families were going into debt to send their children to college, in hopes of a better life for them, only to have them taught an education without practical purpose -- something he tried to rectify later at John Brown University in Siloam Springs:

In the midst of what they chose to call a training for life, they were actually being trained away from the stark realities, and yet the glorious possibilities of life, in bearing their share of the world's burdens.... all this is valuable only as it becomes the background for, or the foundation under, the real things of life.

John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Arkansas

Further information: John Brown University

Siloam Springs, Arkansas

Spanish flu possibly originated 450 miles away in Haskell County, Kansas

Simon Sager Cabin

Alfrey-Brown House

Connelly-Harrington House

1919: Southwestern Collegiate Institute

1920: John E. Brown College

1934: Establishes John Brown University, which had three colleges:

- John E. Brown College

- Siloam School of the Bible

- John Brown Vocational College

1934: State charter

1940: State accreditation

1945: Begins process of North Central Accreditation

Funding

His home farm had a big house and various farm buildings. He added two other farms with their buildings, to be about 300 acres of land. This became school property along with 40 Jersey cattle, horses and mules, 50 hogs, sheep, poultry, farm implements, and a printing plant. There was no debt owed on it, and it was estimated to be worth over $60,000 in 1919 (equivalent to $1,115,440 in 2024).

An additional $15,000 came from donors, headed by the cashier of the town's main bank, Connelly Harrington, with the cashier of another main bank, O.P. Maxwell serving as treasurer.

Brown traveled throughout the US and Canada evangelizing about his school and its goals to provide educational opportunities to people who could not afford to pay for it, and donations came from the very wealthy as well as people of modest means.

Curriculum

In 1919, the students studied general topics, then went on to specialty based on their chosen vocation and aptitude. Students also worked at least three hours a day.

John Brown Schools

1925: Incorporated John Brown Schools for administrative purposes to include:

• John E. Brown College, in Siloam Springs

• John Brown University, in Sulphur Springs

• Federation Bible School

• School of Commerce

1941-1942: Reorganizes through the courts to address financial issues.

Schools in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas

Sulphur Springs, Benton County, Arkansas

mineral spa

Sulphur Springs Park Reserve

Camp Crowder Gymnasium

Shiloh House (Sulphur Springs, Arkansas)

1924: Bought property

1924: John Brown University

3/1926: Inquired about feasibility of getting accreditation

9/1926: Changed university to a junior college for girls

1930: Opened Julia A. Brown School for Girls, for children younger than high school age

1937: Converts Julia A. Brown to a high school

1940: Fire; students move to Siloam Springs campus

1940s: Becomes coeducational Brown Military Academy of the Ozarks

1951: Sells campus and home to Wycliffe

1953: Merges Brown Military Academy of the Ozarks with Brown Military Academy of San Diego

Military academies in California

Brown Military Academy (San Diego, California

1937: Bought this school (formerly named Army and Navy Academy and nicknamed the "West Point of the West".

San Diego, California

Brown School for Girls (Glendora, California)

1937: Bought this school (Formerly named Glendora School for Girls)

(Glendora, California)

Southern California Military Academy (Long Beach, California)

Main article: Southern California Military Academy

1947: Bought this school

1953: Brown Military Academy of the Ozarks in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, merges with this school.

Long Beach, California

Brown Day School (Beverly Hills, California)

(Beverly Hills, California)

(other)

(retirement community)

Radio

KFPW (Siloam Springs, Arkansas)

Main article: KFPW (AM)

Bought in 1928 from Cartersville, MO, and moved it to Siloam Springs.

Sold station in 1930 to Goldman Hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

KUOA (Siloam Springs, Arkansas)

Main articles: KUOA and KMCK-FM

JBU bought KUOA in Fayetteville and relocates the transmitter to the Siloam Springs campus. It becomes mostly student-run as part of a vocational study.

KGER-AM (Long Beach, California)

Main article: KLTX

1948: Had been buying broadcasting time on this station; bought it in 1948.

KOME (Tulsa, Oklahoma)

Main article: KAKC

1950: Buys KOME.

Purchased airtime for "God's Half-Hour"

1930: Daily on KMPC in Beverly Hills, California (now KSPN (AM))

1932: Daily in Fort Worth, Texas

1933: Nightly on XEPN-AM from Eagle Pass, a border blaster licensed across the border in Mexico

1935: Daily on KNX-AM in Hollywood, California

Publications

During Brown's earliest years of being an evangelist, he began a program of self-directed study since he'd left formal education at a young age. He began reading religion, literature, history, and science, and attended lectures at the Moody Bible Institute, where he was influenced by the sermons given by Dwight L. Moody, G. Campbell Morgan, and R.A. Torrey. These three men were aligned with Keswick theology, and they promoted their theological beliefs by founding the institute and also publishing widely, including periodicals, sermons, and Torrey's The Fundamentals, a set of 90 essays that laid the foundation of Christian fundamentalism.

Brown began publishing evangelical works, too: monthly periodicals, his sermons, and songs for hymnbooks. In 1900, he bought a printing and publishing business in Center Point, Iowa.

In 1902 while working at Scarritt Institute, he moved his publishing business to Neosho, Missouri. From 1902 to about 1905, he:

• Wrote for The Herald, a weekly newspaper
• Bought Neosho Free Press and merged it with The Herald
• Wrote and published two books (Sowing and Reaping and Repentance)

When Brown left Scarritt in 1905, he moved his printing business to Siloam Springs. He published two ongoing concerns:

• The Herald, a continuation of the same weekly newspaper he started in Neosho
• World Wide Revival, a monthly periodical (Ostrander)

The American Evangelist

The International Federation of Christian Workers

1919–1922: The Southwestern, university publication

1922: The Interstate American, published in Siloam Springs

The Ozark American

1922–1933: The American Wayshower, university publication

1934–1936: The Christian Fellowship, university weekly newspaper

John Brown University Bulletin

The Ozark American: In 1923, asked people to buy subscriptions in advance, to fund the school

1937–present: The Threefold Advocate student-run newspaper

Personal life

Brown and Juanita Arrington met at one of his early revivals in Sallisaw, Indian Territory in late summer 1899, and they married in December 1900.

Death

[If applicable] Legacy If any, describe. See Charles Darwin for an example.

Pedagogical views and educational philosophies

Brown's positive family experiences on a rural farm, his unfortunate experience of leaving school at a young age, and his nondenominational training would shape his future vision for vocational education and higher education made accessible to anyone regardless of ability to pay.

Context: In US post-Civil War, curricula changes from classical education to meeting industrial needs, the Morrill Act, the controversy of offering electives

Vocational programs: Several other schools with similar vocational programs, or work colleges before JBU in 1919:

• Berea College in Kentucky (1869)
• Berry College in Georgia (1902)
• College of the Ozarks in Missouri (1906)
• Blackburn College in Illinois ("work college" since 1913)
• Fargo Agricultural School in Arkansas (1920), for Black students

Published works

If any, list the works organized by date of publication. See Charles Darwin for an example.

Recognition

Include honours, decorations, awards, and distinctions in this section, if any.

See also

List related Wikipedia articles in alphabetical order. Common nouns are listed first. Proper nouns follow.

• autobiography
• biography

Further reading

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External links

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