The Samuel Miller Brownell and Esther Delzell Brownell collection documents the family life of two individuals from their courtship through their old age. To a lesser extent, the career of Samuel Brownell as educator is also documented. The papers are arranged roughly chronologically into three series, beginning with the lives of each of the Brownells before their marriage, and then following them as they moved from Nebraska to Michigan, to Connecticut, to Washington, D.C., to Michigan again, and finally to back to Connecticut.
Samuel Miller Brownell was born in 1900 in Peru, Nebraska. He received his B.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1921, his M.A. from Yale University in 1924, and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1926. Brownell was an educator, administrator, and consultant in the field of urban educational administration. His first professional post was at the New York State College of Teachers. From 1927 to 1938, he was Superintendent of Schools in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. In 1938, he joined the faculty of Yale as a professor of educational administration. From 1947 to 1953, he was President of New Haven State Teacher's College, concurrent with his work at Yale. He resigned both positions when he was appointed U.S. Commissioner of Education by President Eisenhower in 1953. His brother, Herbert Brownell, also worked for the Eisenhower administration, serving as U.S. Attorney General from 1953 to 1957. In 1956, Samuel Brownell left Washington to become Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools. He returned to New Haven in 1966, where he held a joint position at Yale and the University of Connecticut. He retired in 1973. In the mid 1970s, he served as a consultant for Development & Resources Corporation, which conducted the Iran Public Sector Management Program, a diagnostic review of Iran’s public sector. Brownell died in 1990.
Esther Delzell Brownell was born in 1902 in Syracuse, Nebraska. Her family moved to Peru, Nebraska in 1905. She attended Peru State Normal School for her primary and secondary education, graduating with a B.A. in English and Education in 1923. After graduation, she taught history at the high school level until her marriage to Samuel Brownell in 1927. The Brownells had four children: Richard, born in 1930, Dorothy, in 1932, Jane, in 1937, and Ruth, in 1944. Esther Brownell was active in a number of social and philanthropic organizations. She was a life-long member of P.E.O., a philanthropic educational organization; and while living in Detroit, she served on the Women’s Committee of the United Community Services and the Board of Directors of the YWCA; and she was a sponsor for students visiting the U.S. through the American Field Service’s international scholarship program. Esther Brownell died a year after her husband, in 1991.
