Harry Browne - Biography

Biography

Browne was born in New York City, New York to CBS radio personalities Cecil Margaret Davis and Edson Bradford Browne and grew up in Los Angeles, California. He lived in Vancouver, Canada and Zurich, Switzerland in the late 1970s and early 1980s and resided in Franklin, Tennessee, at the time of his death.

He was inducted into the U.S. Army on May 5, 1953. He went to the Southwestern Signal Corps Training Center at Camp San Luis Obispo, California to study cryptography. On October 4, 1953 he was sent to Bikini Island in the Marshall Islands. He had a top-secret and atomic-energy clearance and on March 1, 1954 he witnessed the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb test.

In 1955 Browne was sent to Eniwetok to finish his tour of duty and afterwards was transferred to the Army Reserves at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He was released from active military service on July 17, 1956. He was honorably discharged from the Armed Forces on February 28, 1961 and discharged from the Army Reserves on July 1, 1961.

Browne was a successful advertising and sales executive in the 1960s, but he gave it up to devote full-time to the “Americanist” cause. Tired of hearing complaints about the press, he set to work to do something positive. He believed that the newspapers of America would willingly buy material promoting the American way of life. So in 1961 he took on the proprietorship of American Way Features, Inc., a newspaper feature service, and as managing editor inaugurated a plan to turn the service from a subsidized program into a profit-making service. It sold “Americanist” features, in competition with all the recognized syndicates. His own column, The American Way, appeared in over 200 newspapers throughout America.

In the summer of 1962, Browne was named the advertising manager for the Liberty Amendment Committee's bimonthly publication American Progress for Economic Freedom. In October he was named associate editor, and in November he was the editor. The following Spring the magazine was renamed Freedom Magazine, and Browne continued as its editor until February 1964 when he turned his full-time attention to the American Way Features, Inc.

Also in the 1960s, Browne taught courses such as: The Economics of Freedom, The Tools of Success, Tools of the Market, The Economics of Success, and The Art of Profitable Living. Browne was an investment advisor for much of his life.