Blanche Brown Johnson papers

Blanche Wallace Brown was born on August 20, ca. 1859, daughter of L.M. and Mary Brown of Lafayette, Indiana. In 1883-1884, Blanche enrolled in special courses at Purdue University, taking wood carving, decorative design, and historical ornament.

She married Oscar D. Johnson in 1886, and they had two sons, Harold Brown Johnson (b. 1890) and Maxwell Oscar Johnson. Johnson appears to have gone to college in 1876 to Auburn, New York. She was interested... in art, cooking, interior decorating, and served at least one year as President of the Art Club of Lafayette in 1914-1915. She died on July 7, 1938 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Blanche’s son Maxwell Oscar Johnson graduated from the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University with a B.S. in 1913, and later returned to Purdue to attain a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1928. Maxwell became an internationally known scientist for his research on the pineapple. Blanche’s husband, Oscar D. Johnson, appears to have died in 1921.

Blanche Brown Johnson and her family remained supportive of the university and offered several items that had belonged to John Purdue to the university in 1925. She acquired these items from her father who was a colleague and friend of Purdue, and from Purdue himself.