James Brownlee Rankin was born in Denver, Colorado, January 31, 1900, the son of Reverend James Doig Rankin and Daisy Meloy Rankin. Rankin's father had been assigned to Denver to begin a mission. Eventually, he was to build and be pastor of the United Methodist Church in that city. Rankin and his sister attended schools in Denver, but soon were sent to their parents' original home, Chicago, to study in that city's Latin schools. At the age of ten, James Rankin and his sister were sent to Europe for four years and studied in schools in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. Returning home at the outbreak of World War I, Rankin attended the Horace Mann School in New York City in preparation for entering Princeton. Mr. Rankin received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from Princeton and subsequently a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In his college years James Rankin developed a great love for books and for the rest of his life collected rare books and first editions. Somewhat later he also developed an interest in art, and particularly western art. This avocation led him to begin a collection of books illustrated by western artists, notably Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington. Rankin's first employment after completing his education was a position at the Collegiate School for Boys in New York City. He remained at this school until 1939. With his summers free, Rankin could pursue his many interests: travel, book collecting, western art, and history. By 1936, he had developed a very strong interest in the work and life of Charles M. Russell, and that summer, he decided to research and write a biography of the artist and produce an illustrated catalog of all of Russell's known works. This was his primary goal and the object of all of his free time until 1940. He took advertisements in national and regional newspapers as well as pertinent magazines. From this, he developed a wide range of contacts who had known Russell or knew of or owned works by the Montana artist. He made extensive trips to interview individuals and to catalog Russell's art. Rankin moved to Pasadena, California, in 1939, to be closer to his father and to pursue his teaching and research interests. He married Josephine Crenshaw of New York City in 1940. He never lost his lifelong interest in Russell, but did not continue working on the biography/catalog after that year. Ultimately he destroyed his manuscript after the publication of a Russell biography by a friend who, Rankin believed, had plagiarized much of his earlier work. The one piece Rankin did publish on Russell is a bibliography of published works illustrated by the artist which appeared in American Book Illustrations in 1938. James Brownlee Rankin died at San Bernardino, California, August 2, 1962.