Brand Blanshard

Percy Brand Blanshard was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of reason and rationalism. Brand was born in Fredericksburg, Ohio, to Canadian parents Francis, a Congregational minister, and Emily Coulter Blanshard. Paul Beecher Blanshard, the freethinker and sometime editor of *The Nation*, was his fraternal twin. Their mother died in 1893, and the Rev. Mr. Blanshard took his sons to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for care by his mother, Orminda Adams Blanshard. Upon being diagnosed with tuberculosis, Francis was …