Harvey Winfield Brown

Born in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, Brown was educated in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, then completed an apprenticeship as a machinist. He then worked making naval guns. In 1905, he joined the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and from 1911 he worked full-time for the union. He was initially business agent for the union's Wilkes-Barre local, then in 1915 became an organizer for the international union. In 1916, he moved to become business agent for the union's Newark, New Jersey local.

In 1921, Brown was elected as one of the IAM's vice-presidents. In 1938, the IAM's president, Arthur O. Wharton, became ill, and Brown was appointed as acting president. In 1940, he was elected as Wharton's successor. Under his leadership, the IAM grew rapidly, and became an industrial union, supplemented its members in the railroad sector with others in airframe and general manufacturing. He also centralized the union, and engaged in lengthy conflicts with Emmet Davision, the IAM's secretary-treasurer, and with both the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and the International Union of Operating Engineers. He served as a vice-president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), but later disaffiliated the IAM from the AFL, objecting to the federation's decisions in jurisdictional disputes.