Pioneering Crimson Business Representative Dies at 86

At a time when Harvard’s campus was deeply divided by gender and women studied at neighboring Radcliffe College, a small group of women became the first female members of The Crimson.

Joan Simons Brown ’51 was among them, serving as the paper’s Radcliffe Chief Business Representative in the spring of 1950. Brown died a few weeks ago on March 29 at the age of 86, according to an obituary published in the Manchester Journal.

Brown and fellow Crimson editor Thomas Cunningham Simons ’50, who served as Business Manager in the spring and fall of 1949, married after graduation and left Cambridge for California. The couple had four children. She dedicated her life to education and her family.

After spending time in California, Brown served as chair of the board at the Hartford College For Women in Connecticut. She was also a founding member of the Westledge School, an experimental multiracial secondary school, and served on the boards of Bellarmine University, Berea College, and the Louisville Water Company.

The school Brown attended during her undergraduate years bears little resemblance to the one Harvard students know today. Radcliffe students were not allowed to study in Lamont Library—the main undergraduate library—and gender integration sparked much debate. For example, a 1950 Crimson headline read, “Harvard, Radcliffe Go Steady for 71 Years; Few Sanctums Left for Men.”

“As the Harvard and Radcliffe communities overlap, even extracurriculars were forced to take cognizance of the courtship,” the unattributed article adds. At The Crimson, Joan McPartlin Mahoney ’49 became the newspaper’s first Radcliffe Correspondent in the fall of 1947, paving the way for more women like Brown to join the staff.

After the death of her first husband, Brown married James K. Brown, a former classmate. In her later years, Brown was an active golfer and member of the Green Mountain Girls and the National Society of Colonial Dames, according to the Manchester Journal obituary.

Her funeral service took place earlier this month, and Brown spent her final days surrounded by pictures of family members, according to the obituary.