Series 5: Speeches, 1950-1983

Although this series consists largely of the final version of the texts of Dr. Brown's speeches, it also contains correspondence, background material, and earlier drafts of speeches. Folders are arranged chronologically by day and year of the speech. Arranged at the beginning of the series is a folder with an index to speeches from 1963 through 1970 as well as three bound volumes of Dr. Brown's speeches from 1970 through 1973. For the remaining folders, the final text of the speech appears first in the folder and thereafter materials are arranged chronologically by date, with background materials arranged at the end of the folder. The folder title provides the speech title (if known), organization to which the speech was presented, place of the presentation (if known), and date. In those few instances in which the final transcript of the speech is not included among the records, earlier drafts or other materials pertaining to the speech are still provided for reference.

As Chief of the Community Mental Health Facilities Branch, Deputy Director (1968-1970) and Director (1970-1978) at NIMH, Dr. Brown made numerous speeches on a number of issues important to mental health in the country during that period. Recurring topics included child mental health, financing mental health, the new federalism, community mental health programs, training mental health providers, drug abuse and addiction prevention, mental health services for minorities, ethics and values in mental health, mental health research, national health insurance, and deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill.

Among the many speeches Dr. Brown gave, titles of interest include A Federal Challenge to the Community: "Health and Education Program for the Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction" (September 10, 1971); "Child Priority: A Progress Report--1972," (June 23, 1972); "War and Peace and Related Drug Abuse Issues" (November 3, 1972); "Mental Health in the Future--Politics, Science, Ethics, and Values" (April 13, 1973); "Mobile in April--Spring and the New Federalism" (April 4, 1973); "Community Mental Health Centers: As A System of Prevention" (November 21, 1974); and "Deinstitutionalization and Community Support Systems" (November 4, 1975).

Organizations for, and meetings at which Dr. Brown spoke included the Meeting of Advanced Health Care Delivery System Pilot Project, NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (October 17, 1972); Foundation for Child Development of the New York State Committee for Children Advocacy (December 12, 1972); International Health Conference (October 16, 1974); and the 1975 World Congress (August 11, 1975). The same, or slightly revised, speech was sometimes given to different organizations if appropriate to the occasion. Audio recordings of some speeches in this series are also included among the audiotapes in the audiovisual materials.