Robert A. Brown has spent most of his working life in public education, serving as both a reading specialist and a principal, but he has also authored several nonfiction pieces dealing with the Great Depression and its popular culture, including western movies and the so-called "Spicy" magazines of the period. His work includes a piece on the legend of cowboy-movie star Tom Mix tcommissioned by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. An internationally known collector of such nostalgic items such as movie paper, radio premiums, and pulp magazines, Brown supplied the art and wrote the text for Kitchen Sink Press's popular trading card series Spicy: Naughty '30s Pulp Covers and Spicy: More Naughty '30s Pulp Covers, which quickly became sold-out collector's items.

Brown initiated what became The Cleansing, writing letters on authentic period stationery to his old friend Wooley, using his deep knowledge of the 1930s to portray himself as the WPA employee beset by rural horrors who became The Cleansing's protagonist.