Brown also founded the American Institute of Indian Studies, which was located in the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania.
[4][circular reference] W. Norman Brown was born in Baltimore on June 24, 1892, and went to India at the age of eight, as the son of missionary parents.
His parents came back to the United States in 1910 and Brown and his father both studied at Johns Hopkins University, as an undergraduate and graduate student respectively.
His doctoral dissertation was published in part in the Journal of the American Oriental Society in 1919,[6] and demonstrated his diachronic interest in South Asia.
[15] In 1944, Brown had advocated for the serious development and funding of Oriental Studies in a draft document in which he wrote: "During the course of the war the US govt.
The postwar Orient will also probably be freer than before to engage in trade with the Occident...To meet this new situation America will need to acquire information and develop personnel able to handle the increased political, business, and cultural relations.
"[16] Soon after, Brown argued for the development of a more bounded program of South Asia Regional Studies, with the announcement of the independence of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
Through this period, helping W. Norman Brown was Ernest Bender, a brilliant student of linguistics who was enrolled in the Department of Oriental Studies.
[18][19] Through his career at Penn, Prof. W. Norman Brown continued to attract and place good students, scholars and faculty members, making the University of Pennsylvania one of the best venues for the study of classical and contemporary South Asia.
[22] Brown also invited Stella Kramrisch to join the Department of South Asia Regional Studies in 1953, where she was a professor till her death in 1993.
He established the American Institute of Indian Studies in his offices attached to the South Asia Reading Room in Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania.