Herbert Brownell, Jr. was U.S. attorney general from 1953 to 1957 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Brownell, a New York attorney, was a leader of the national Republican Party during the 1940s and managed the 1944 and 1948 presidential campaigns of Thomas E. Dewey. As attorney general, he was noted for his determination to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), that Southern states desegregate their public schools.

Brownell was born on February 20, 1904, in Peru, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1924 and then headed east to enter Yale University School of Law. After earning his law degree in 1927, Brownell was admitted to the New York bar and went to work for one of the nation's most prestigious corporate law firms, Root, Clark, Buckner and Ballentine.

During the 1930s, Brownell became interested in politics. He was elected to the...