Ina Corinne Brown was born on May 27, 1896, in Gatesville, Texas, to Corinne Wells and John Dayton Brown. After graduating from high school in 1915, Brown taught at elementary schools near her hometown, and in 1919, she started taking classes at Southern Methodist University. Two years later, Brown joined the Methodist Episcopal Church's Epworth League, which enabled her to travel and gather information about native cultures and religions in Cuba, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Brown enrolled in classes at the University of Chicago in 1934 and completed her Ph.D. in anthropology there eight years later. From 1942 to 1966, Brown was Professor of Social Anthropology at Scarritt College, and she remained closely connected to the college after her retirement. In 1974, Brown moved to McKendree Manor, a retirement home in Hermitage, Tennessee, where she continued to be intellectually active, writing and publishing a number of articles, poems, and letters. Over the course of her career, Brown published the following books: Story of the American Negro (1936), Race Relations in a Democracy (1949), Understanding Other Cultures (1963), and Understanding Race Relations (1973). By the time she died on May 12, 1984, Brown had received a number of awards, including the Scarritt Tower Award for Distinguished Service (1980) and a Distinguished Alumni Award from SMU (1984).