Background
Brown was born in Topeka, Kansas and was a middle child of five children.
Brown was born in Topeka, Kansas and was a middle child of five children.
Later, she attended the University of Kansas and received her architecture degree in 1944, the first black woman do so from the university.
She was also the first black woman to earn a degree in architecture from the University of Kansas. She went so Seaman High School and went to Washburn University between 1936 and 1937. Brown started working in Chicago for Kenneth Roderick O"Neal from 1945 to 1949.
She became a licensed architect on July 19, 1949, and began to work for Frank J. Kornacker & Associates that same year.
She was responsible for structural calculations on the apartments on 800 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. She worked in Chicago until 1953, when she left for Brazil.
One of her reasons for leaving the United States was because "opportunities for advancement were limited by her race" and that in Brazil, there would be fewer racial boundaries to her success. Foreign part of 1954, she worked for Charles Bosworth, but later opened her own interior design firm, Escandia Limitada
In Brazil, Brown worked on several significant buildings and projects.
She was the project manager and designer for a large complex in Osasco and later another owned by Pfizer Pharmaceutical Corporation in Guarulhos. She also designed a Jeep plant in San Bernardo and a shipping facility for Siemens. She also designed an airport for Krupp of Germany.
Other highlights included the 376,740 square foot Kodak Brasileire Comerico film factory in São Paulo Jose dos Campos.
She also designed many personal homes for wealthy Brazilians. In 1995, Brown moved to Washington, District of Columbia After cancer surgery in 1999, she went into an unexpected coma which lasted two weeks until she died.
She was also the only black member of the Chicago chapter of Alpha Alpha Gamma (female architects and allied women professionals).