Brown University Library Collections
South Asia Collections
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Anne S.K. Brown Military
The Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection is the foremost American collection of material devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering, and is one of the world's largest collections devoted to the study of military and naval uniforms. It was formed over a period of forty years by the late Mrs. John Nicholas Brown (1906-1985) of Providence and is still growing. It contains approximately 12,000 printed books, 18,000 albums, sketchbooks, scrapbooks and portfolios, (containing thousands of prints and drawings), and over 13,000 individual prints, drawings and water-colors as well as a collection of 5,000 miniature lead soldiers.
Formerly in the Brown family residence (the Nightingale-Brown House, 1791), the entire collection (which was probably the largest private military collection in the world), was presented to Brown University and transferred to Special Collections located in the John Hay Library in 1982.
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Kowalski (Barry F.) (Class of 1966) Vietnam oral history
This collection contains the oral history interview of Barry Kowalski, Class of 1966, by Professor Beth Taylor of Brown University for the Vietnam Veterans Archive collection and related documents and objects. The interview was by telephone, on February 21, 2011. The interview draws on Barry Kowalski’s recollections of his years at Brown (1962 to 1966, graduating with a B.A. in Political Science), and his military training and experiences in Vietnam. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the fall of 1966, and attended the Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia before receiving his commission. He wanted a non-combat position as a transport, communications, or supply officer—Military Operations Specialists (MOS), but he and his whole class were given commissions as infantry officers. He was in Vietnam from November 1967 - Summer 1968. Barry was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. for his second and final year of service. There are some recollections about his return to the United States during the war era. In 1973, Barry earned his JD from Catholic University Law School. Since 1980, he has been a lawyer for the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He has helped prosecute cases including the Rodney King beating and the last Department of Justice investigation of the Martin Luther King Assassination.
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Palm Leaf Manuscripts
The Rev. Dr. Josiah Nelson Cushing, Class of 1862, was a missionary to the Shan people of British-occupied Burma and a noted linguist who translated the Bible into the Shan dialect and compiled a Shan-English dictionary. In 1881 he presented a complete set of the Tipitaka, the canonical text of Buddhism and many manuscripts written on painted and lacquered palm leaves.
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Persian Miniature Paintings
Miniature paintings from the estate of Mrs. Adrienne Minassian. The paintings often include text from Persian and Indian tales.
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Pingree (David E.)
The late David E. Pingree chaired the Department of History of Mathematics at Brown, and acquired a scholarly reputation of international renown from his own research into the history of mathematics and the exact sciences. In the course of his research, he compiled a research collection of books, pamphlets and manuscripts (many in photocopy format) in a variety of languages, some exceedingly rare and others found nowhere else in North America. The collection comprises more than 22,000 items, and is a remarkable resource for the study of mathematics in the ancient world. Its special focus on India and the relationship of Eastern mathematics to the development of mathematics and related disciplines in the West makes it of unique and particular importance for the study of the history of science. The majority of the collection is housed at the Rockefeller Library and are available to borrow. The rare titles are housed at the John Hay Library and are available for research in the Special Collections Reading Room by appointment.
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Schirmer (Daniel B.)
Daniel Boone Schirmer was an activist author, scholar and historian who devoted his life to human rights, social justice, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism and Philippine solidarity work. This collection contains materials used during Schirmer's research on the history of the Philippines and the writing of his book "Republic or empire : American resistance to the Philippine war" which was published in 1972. The collection includes 3 reel-to-reel audio tapes; 4 posters; 1 broadside; 2 photographs; and copies of articles from books and periodicals.
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