Biography

Browne was born in South Halifax

Halifax, Vermont

Halifax is a town in Windham County, Vermont, in the United States. The town was named for the Earl of Halifax. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 782.-Geography:...

, Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

. After his high school education, Browne enlisted in the Forty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers (1862–63).

He went on to study law in Rochester

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

 and Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...

; edited the Lakeside Monthly (Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

) (1869–74), The Alliance (1878–79), and The Dial

The Dial

The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...

(1880–1913), a semimonthly literary review.
Browne was at the forefront of the 20th century intellectual and literary scene in Chicago, Illinois. A transplant from New England, Browne settled in Chicago in 1867 and founded the literary journal, The Dial, which was a revival of Margaret Fuller’s transcendental periodical and served as a venue for modernist literature. Browne found Chicago to be somewhat inhospitable to significant intellectual ventures, and sacrificed much of his own wealth in the pursuit of The Dial’s success. The magazine finally debuted in 1880, after Browne had worked in periodicals from the Western Monthly, Lakeside Monthly and the Chicago Alliance.
In contrast to the first incarnations of The Dial, Browne’s endeavor was criticized for its apolitical and conservative content.
Browne also attempted to establish an upscale bookstore, Browne’s Bookstore, in the Fine Arts Building. The store was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. However, he failed to attract consistent patronage, and closed the store after five years.

He authored:

• Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln
  Abraham Lincoln
  Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
  
  (1886, new edition, 1913)
• Volunteer Grain (1896)

Browne died aged 69.

External links

• Francis F Browne Papers at Newberry Library
  Newberry Library
  The Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...