Frank Clyde Brown (October 16, 1870 – June 3, 1943) was an American academic, university administrator, and pioneer collector of folk songs and folklore from the southeastern United States.
He wrote a biography of the 17th-century poet and playwright Elkanah Settle, published in 1910, and as a teacher became noted for his work as an interpreter of Shakespeare.
Over the next thirty years he became the society's principal collector of folk songs and lore, and traveled around the region, often on summer expeditions to isolated areas, with recording equipment powered by a gasoline generator.
"[2] The Frank Clyde Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, eventually published after his death, contained seven volumes comprising some 38,000 items including ballads, songs, games, rhymes, beliefs, customs, riddles, proverbs, tales, legends, superstitions, and speech, taken from the southeastern United States, particularly North Carolina, and has been described as "the most imposing monument ever erected in this country to the common memory of the people of any single state.
As liaison officer with architects and contractors, he assumed a supervisory role alongside Trinity's President, William P. Few, and is credited with contributing many ideas to the university's building plans, including its use of the then newly discovered Hillsborough stone.