Virginia Mae Brown

Virginia Mae Brown
Born	Template:Birth date Pliny, West Virginia, U.S.
Died	February 15, 1991(1991-02-15) (aged 67)
Occupation(s)	Attorney, government official, civil servant
Known for	First female assistant attorney general of West Virginia; first female state insurance commissioner in the U.S.; first female member and chair of the Interstate Commerce Commission

Virginia Mae Brown (November 13, 1923 – February 15, 1991) was a distinguished American attorney, government official, and civil servant. She made history as West Virginia's inaugural female assistant attorney general during John G. Fox's tenure and became the first woman to hold the position of state insurance commissioner nationwide. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), marking the first female membership since the commission's establishment in 1887; she subsequently became its first female chair.

Early life

Originating from Pliny, West Virginia, Brown's appointment to the ICC by President Johnson in March 1964 shattered longstanding gender barriers within the agency. She progressed to vice chair in 1968 and was elevated to chair for a one-year period beginning in 1969. Additionally, in 1967, she served as a U.S. delegate at the United Nations Inland Transport Committee session held in Geneva.

Later life and death

Following her departure from the ICC in 1979, Brown assumed leadership as president and chair of the board at Buffalo Bank of Eleanor. From 1983 until her passing in 1991, she fulfilled the role of chief administrative law judge for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Hearing Appeals in Charleston, West Virginia. Her life concluded on February 15, 1991, due to a heart attack.

Personal life

Brown was mother to two daughters.

Legacy

Throughout her career, Brown dismantled numerous gender barriers within both state and federal government sectors. She was West Virginia’s first female executive secretary to the Judicial Council (1944–1952) and subsequently its first woman assistant attorney general (1952–1961). In 1961, she achieved a national milestone as the first woman to serve as an insurance commissioner in the United States. The following year, she joined the West Virginia Public Service Commission as its first female member. Her most prominent accomplishment was becoming the first woman to chair an independent federal agency—the United States Interstate Commerce Commission—from 1969 to 1970.