William Cowper Brann (January 4, 1855 – April 2, 1898) was an American journalist also known as Brann the Iconoclast. During his life, he gained a reputation as a "brilliant though vitriolic editorialist." He defended lynching Black men accused of rape and called for opponents of this type of mob violence to be castrated.

Early life

The son of Presbyterian minister Noble J. Brann, he was born in Humboldt, Illinois.

A job in a print shop turned Brann's interest toward journalism, and he became a cub reporter. He devoted many paragraphs to his hatred of the wealthy eastern social elites, such as the Vanderbilt family, and deplored their marriages to titled Europeans. He characterized such marriages as diluting the elites' already-debased American stock with worthless foreign blood.

Baylor University, the prominent Baptist institution in Waco, drew constant criticism from Brann. He set off a scandal with allegations that Baylor President Rufus Burleson's son-in-law's brother Steen Morris, who lived with the Burleson family, had impregnated a student from Brazil. Brann's constant attacks on the university enraged many of its supporters, and, on October 2, 1897, he was kidnapped by Baylor students who demanded that he retract his statements. Both Davis and Brann died the next day.

Works

  • The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast. New York: Brann Publishers, 1919.

:::Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6 | Vol. 7 | Vol. 8 | Vol. 9 | Vol. 10 | Vol. 11 | Vol. 12

Further reading

  • Charles Carver, Brann the Iconoclast. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1957.
  • Jerry Flemmons. Oh Dammit!: A Lexicon and Lecture from William Cowper Brann, the Iconoclast. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 1998.
  • Edward G. Fletcher and Jack L. Hart, Brann the Playwright. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1941.
  • Susan Nelle Gregg, Waco's Apostle. M.A. thesis. University of Texas at Austin, 1986.
  • Cathy Howard, "Brann's Iconoclast and the Fight Against Baylor University," Texas Historian, September 1980.
  • Andy Kopplin, "W. C. Brann, a Texas Iconoclast," Texas Historian, May 1981.
  • Gary Cleve Wilson, "Bane of the Baptists," Texas Monthly, vol. 14, no. 1 (Jan. 1986), pg. 122.

See also

  • List of journalists killed in the United States
  • Censorship in the United States
  • Rufus Columbus Burleson

References

  • "William Cowper Brann" in the Handbook of Texas Online
  • "The Iconoclast's Icon" by Dave Shiflett, October 1, 2004
  • William Cowper Brann Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Baylor University's description of its Willam Cowper Brann Collection A careful and honest appraisal by Baylor of its great critic, and his charges.