Guide to the Harold C. Bryant Papers

This finding aid describes the Harold C. Bryant Papers, part of the NPS History Collection. To search this guide for names, places, key words, or phrases enter Ctrl F on your keyboard (command key + F key on a Mac). Request an in-person research appointment or get more information by contacting the archivist.

Dr. Harold C. Bryant (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

Collection Overview

Collection Number: HFCA 3523
Accession Numbers: HFCA-01052
Creator: Bryant, Dr. Harold C.
Title: Harold C. Bryant Papers
Dates: 1930-1939
Volume of Collection: 0.4 LF
Language of Materials: English

Digitized copies: This collection has not been digitized.

Conditions Governing Access: This collection is open to research use.
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use: Some materials may be subject to copyright protections. See the NPS general copyright & restrictions information.

Provenance: Received from Grand Canyon National Park in 1989.
Processing Note: This collection was processed by Nancy Russell in August 2025.
Rights Statements for Archival Description: This guide is in the public domain.
Preferred Citation: Harold C. Bryant Papers, NPS History Collection (HFCA 3523)
Location of Repository: NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, PO Box 50, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425

Related Materials:

• NPS Oral History Collection, NPS History Collection (HFCA 1817)
• Historic Assembled Records of the National Park Service, NPS History Collection (HFCA 1645)
• Record Goup 79 Records of the National Park Service, US National Archives and Records Administration
• Harold C. Bryant Field Notes 1910-1927, University of California, Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Biographical Note

Harold Child Bryant was born in Pasadena, California, on January 30, 1886. He graduated from Pasadena High School in 1904. He received a BS in Zoology/Ornithology from Pomona College in 1908. He taught for a year at a private school in Los Angeles, California. His graduate work was completed at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received an MS in Zoology, and then a PhD in Zoology in 1913.

As a pioneer member of the University of California Extension Division staff he helped to popularize natural history and field studies by leading field trips. His course, called “Six Trips Afield,” took teachers, businessmen, and others on Saturday afternoon trips along roads and trails. He also served as assistant curator of ornithology at the university’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

In September 1914 he became director of a bureau of research and publicity for the California Fish and Game Commission. He also served as editor of the new journal California Fish and Game. In 1918 the Commission sent him into the Sierra to spread conservation messages among the vacationing public. In 1919, at the suggestion of C.M. Goethe, Bryant visited the resorts around Lake Tahoe, conducting field trips for children and adults and giving evening campfire talks. While there, he was contacted by NPS Director Stephen T. Mather, suggesting that the work at Lake Tahoe be moved to Yosemite National Park. As it was the end of the season, Bryant pushed the project to 1920. Mather also contacted Dr. Loye Holmes Miller, a naturalist at the Normal School in Los Angeles, to go to Yosemite in 1920.

Goethe and Mather each provided $200 of their own money to begin a nature guide service at Yosemite, paying $100 in expenses each for Bryant and Miller, with their employers continuing to cover their salaries. Bryant described it as “A work of love. It wasn’t for the money that was in it but because of the opportunities we saw in such work.” In January 1921 Bryant and Miller undertook an extended lecture tour through the eastern and middle western states. Funded by Mather, the pair publicized and stimulated interest in the natural history values of Yosemite and a general appreciation of nature through an increased knowledge and understanding. They returned to Yosemite as temporary rangers that season. Bryant recalled,

Through arrangement with the California Fish and Game Commission, the National Park Service instituted a free nature-guide service in Yosemite. The aim of this service was to furnish useful information regarding trees, wildflowers, birds, and mammals, and their conservation, and to stimulate interest in the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena. The means used to attain this aim were: trips afield; formal lectures, illustrated with lantern slides or motion pictures; ten-minute campfire talks, given alternately at the main resorts of the park; a stated office hour when questions regarding the natural history of the park could be answered; a library of dependable reference works, and a flower show where the commoner wildflowers, properly labeled, were displayed. Occasionally, visiting scientists helped by giving lectures.

Dr. Miller withdrew from the Yosemite work at the end of the summer, leaving Dr. Bryant to continue to develop the program. In 1926-1927 Dr. Miller was appointed a ranger at Crater Lake National Park to develop its nature guide service.

Throughout the 1920s Dr. Bryant continued to work summers at Yosemite as part of the education staff. In 1925, with continued cooperation from the California Fish and Game Commission, he established the Yosemite School of Field Natural History to train naturalists. Emphasis was placed on field experience and the work was of university grade, although no university credit was offered. Over 300 graduates of this school filled nature guides positions in national and state parks and at summer camps throughout the country. In 1928 he was also made a member of the Committee on Study of Educational Problems in National Parks.

On July 1, 1930, NPS Director Horace M. Albright hired Dr. Bryant as an assistant director to oversee the Branch of Research and Education. In this role he oversaw a wide range of programs including naturalists, education, museums, NPS Western Museum Laboratories, New Deal program project funding, and even the wildlife surveys conducted by George M. Wright, Joseph S. Dixon, and Ben Tompson. He traveled extensively, visiting national parks and monuments. As consultant to the director, Dr. Bryant also assisted in the establishment of Olympic National Park in 1938.

An NPS reorganization in January 1939 made Bryant acting superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. He remained in that position for a year. In early 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was established, and he spent much of that year getting the new park organized. He returned to Grand Canyon as superintendent on August 1, 1941. He served in that position until his retirement on March 31, 1954.

In 1954 Dr. Bryant was awarded the Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award. That same year he was honored with a bronze Puglsey Medal for “for his outstanding work in guiding people afield, organizing an administrative structure upon which the interpretive program of the parks is based, and in recognition of his successful pioneering efforts to make the science, scientific, and historic heritage of the country meaningful to its people.”

Dr. Bryant married Amy Morrish in 1914. They had four children. One son, Wayne Bryant, became chief naturalist at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park and then visitor services evaluator for the NPS Western Region.Dr. Harold C. Bryant died in Berkeley, California, on July 14, 1968, aged 82.

Sources:

--. 1914, September 10. “Pasadena Man is Head of Bureau.” Pasadena Star (Pasadena, California), p. 7.

--. (undated). “Harold C. Bryant Cornelius Amory Pugsley National Medal Award, 1954.” American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA). Accessed August 29, 2025. http://www.aapra.org/Pugsley/BryantHarold.html

Bryant, Dr. Harold C. 1962, October 25. Oral history interview with S. Herbert Evison. NPS Oral History Collection (HFCA 1817).

Bryant, Dr. Harold C. and Russell, Dr. Carl P. 1962, March 18. Oral history interview with S. Herbert Evison. NPS Oral History Collection (HFCA 1817).

Danz, Harold. “Dr. Harold Bryant: 1886-1968.” National Park Service. Accessed August 29, 2025. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/sontag/bryant.htm

Shoop, C.F. 1947, June 29. “Stables of S.D. Bryant Property Occupied Site of Present Star-News Building in the 1880s.” Pasadena Star-News (Pasadena, California), p. 3.

Scope and Content Note

Correspondence files of Dr. Harold C. Bryant marked personal and many that are marked confidential. Both incoming and outgoing letters are present, but some outgoing letters are missing. Incoming letters referring to destroying Bryant’s letters suggest the lack of some outgoing correspondence was deliberate. Correspondents include Horace M. Albright; Arno B. Cammerer; Ansel F. Hall; Isabelle Story; Earl A. Trager; Enid and Charles Michael; Carl P. Russell; Hermon C. Bumpus; Harlean James, E. Lowell Sumner; C.A. “Bert” Harwell; and several women who attended the Yosemite Field School but didn’t get jobs with the NPS.

Correspondence with Ansel F. Hall is common from 1931 to 1936 and often reveals tensions in their relationship. Of particular interest is correspondence with Albright regarding Bryant joining the NPS and his observations about Hall’s anticipated reactions. A letter from Arno B. Cammerer discusses filling the chief of the Wildlife Division position following George M. Wright’s death as well as hiring Ned Burns as chief of the Museum Division in 1937. Much correspondence with Earl A. Trager, acting for Dr. Bryant when he travelled, is also present. People mentioned in the correspondence include George M. Wright; Victor Cahalane; Ned Burns; John Doerr; George A. Grant; Louis Shellbach; Joseph S. Dixon; Frank Pinkley; C.A. Harwell; C.M. Goethe; F.M. Fryxell; J. Horace McFarlane; Arthur Stupka; George Hetherington, Ralph E. Price, and Jack Ellis Haynes, among others.

Other topics include the Century of Progress exhibition; travel; personnel appointments; a fish survey in Yosemite; museum and naturalist programs; Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) workers in Berkeley; budgets and New Deal funding; cooperation with state parks; Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp; NPS museum accession policy; photography, film making, and cameras; Yosemite Field School; and undertaking museum projects at Tumacácori, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Rocky Mountain, and Hawaii. Passing gossip about NPS employees and attendees of the Yosemite Field School are included in many letters. Correspondence congratulating him on becoming superintendent at Grand Canyon, a note about a Christmas gift from Willian Henry Jackson, Christmas letters, a few postcards, and a list of organizations to which Bryant belonged are also present.

Also includes correspondence on behalf of and with the California Fish and Game Commission staff concerning topics such as wildlife surveys in California; predatory animal control investigations; Lowell Sumner’s research; recommendation for former Yosemite naturalist George Crowe; Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at University of California, Berkeley; and a California waterfowl survey. Of note is a letter from Lowell Sumner discussing joining the NPS someday. Frequent correspondents include Leo Wilson, E. Lowell Sumner, Jr. and Rodney S. Ellsworth.

Arrangement

Arranged chronologically by year and thereunder alphabetically.

Container List

BOX 01
Folder 01: 1930-1933, California Fish and Game Commission
Folder 02: 1930 Correspondence [NPS Hiring]
Folder 03: 1931 Correspondence
Folder 04: 1932 Correspondence
Folder 05: 1933 Correspondence
Folder 06: 1934 Correspondence
Folder 07: 1935 Correspondence
Folder 08: 1936 Correspondence
Folder 09: 1937 Correspondence
Folder 10: 1938 Correspondence [1 of 2]
Folder 11: 1938 Correspondence [2 of 2]
Folder 12: 1939 Correspondence

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