UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #320
BRYSON, REID

BRYSON, Reid (1920-2008)
Graduate Student; Professor of Geography and Meteorology; Director of Institute for Environmental Studies
At UW: 1946-1986

Interviewed: 1986	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 4 hours	

Background; Coming to UW; WWII career; Atomic bomb; Teaching at UW; Geography Department; Establishment of Department of Meteorology; Time in Arizona; Committee on Future of Man; Recommendation for college of environmental studies, 1965; Reaction of College of Agriculture; School of Natural Resources; Development of new interdisciplinary institute; Nominations for directorship; His appointment; Rockefeller grant; Structure of Institute for Environmental Studies; Its problems; Hostility of other departments; Attracting graduate students; Relations with Graduate School; Issue of division of funds; Current status; Reflections on career.

First Interview Session (April 11, 1986): Tapes 1-2
Time	Keywords

00:00:00	[Tape 1/Side 1] Start of Interview/Introduction. RB quotes Chinese visitor. 

00:01:22	Parents both farm children.  Indians in ancestry.  Father got job in Detroit where RB born.  Comments on city.  RB a reader, introvert.  Books he read.  Article in National Geographic about discovery of ancient Indian flute.  Ambition to be archeologist. Advised to study geology first.  Reasons for advice.  

00:08:31	Reasons went to Dennison College. 

00:09:52	Pacifist in late 1930s.  Fellowship offers.  Chose UW because girlfriend there.  (Now Mrs. Bryson.)  

00:12:20	Enlistment in Air Force, after Pearl Harbor, as meteorologist. War career. 

00:17:00	Discovery of what was later named jet stream by RB and William Plumley while predicting weather over Japan for bombing missions from Hawaii.  

00:26:08	Began practice of naming typhoons/hurricanes.

00:28:31	Awareness of work on bomb.  [end side 1/begin Tape 1/Side 2] General LeMay's strategy for bombing Japan.  The atom bomb.

00:38:23 	End of war and return to U.S.  

00:39:43	Decision to return to Chicago for meteorology degree.  Had written dissertation during war.  

00:41:06	Had written UW re possibility for teaching job after war. Got offer, joint geology and geography. Fall, 1946.  Half-time.  Vernon Clifford Finch's advice not to bother to get second Ph.D. (in geology).  Background of UW rule against working for degree while on faculty.  

00:46:02	Supposed to teach course in geomorphology but current teacher Frederick Thwaites didn't retire. Anecdote. Taught beginning geography, shared course with Finch.  Anecdote re student. Enjoyed geography.  Took courses in geology.  

00:56:01	Trewartha told him no future at UW.  Knew RB slanting courses toward emphasis on climate, seen as competitive.  Department tended to get rid of young professors who competed with older ones. 

00:58:19	Had been talking with people on campus who were interested in meteorology—Arno Lenz, Bob Muckenhirn.  Agreed try get Verner Suomi.  RB went to Ingraham about starting department. 

01:00:00	[Tape 2/Side 1] Relations with other members of department good.  Doesn't know their reaction to firing.  Harsh words from Trewartha. Wanted climatology in geography.  RB thinks he may have been brash.  Trewartha's publications mostly in form of textbooks.  Behind the times.  Robinson not at all.  Leading cartographer in country.  Hartshorne topflight; RB and he enjoyed talking.  What was nature of geography?  He didn't consider RB a geographer.  Paper written with Robinson on gulf stream; notes misplaced.

01:07:16	Q. re process of starting new department.  Couldn't do it now.  The early meteorology department at UW; course being taught in 1883.  

01:09:26	RB's thesis not ready when started department but didn't bother Ingraham.  Department didn't mind.  Gave meteorology two rooms. 

01:14:34	Q. re how RB got talking to people in other colleges—Jim Dickson another one.  They needed someone in instrumentation so supported Suomi appointment.  They would have conveyed need to Ingraham.  

01:17:08	Graduate School gave Suomi research support for work on ag.  Working in Lot 60 area.  Reason for rift between Suomi and RB.  RB welcomed chance work with Hasler, doing physical limnology of Mendota.  Eventually Suomi and RB learned to get along provided didn't talk business.

01:29:18	[Tape 2/Side 2]  People.  Eberhard Wahl.  Former students.

01:38:44	The Arizona episode.  Elvehjem's advice to take leave instead of resigning.  Good advice.  RB found he couldn't adjust to third rate university after UW.

01:43:05	How RB got appointed to NAS Committee on Geography.  Only UW person on it.  Later on Committee on Interdisciplinary Problems.  Led to RB asking Harrington to form official committee.  Potter's informal group already in existence.  

01:49:14	First effort was toward relating humanities and sciences.  Environment became means because interdisciplinary work already underway.  Intellectual ideas came from Potter, Watrous, and RB, more than from McCamy and Hebert.  Exciting years.

01:51:50	LS is mentioning various efforts underway in those years, e.g. Environmental Design.  No connection.  Environmental Awareness Center.  

01:54:04	The 1965 special committee recommended establishment of a college on environmental studies.  Pound's reaction.  School of Natural Resources.  Division still exists.  Should be working together.

01:56:59	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview session.

Second Interview Session (April 18, 1986): Tapes 3-4
Time	Keywords

00:00:00	[Tape 3/Side 1] Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:16	Retraction from first session re cut-throat competition, quarrel with Trewartha.  IES, meteorology also very competitive.  UW faculty has historically overproduced.  Anecdote re censure by NAS committee on Atmospheric sciences about talking to reporters.  Threatened UW academic freedom.  

00:08:36	The direction of the interview. RB’s contribution to 125th anniversary book of IES.

00:09:35	Question re feasibility of "university of professors" idea, 1965.  Questionnaire 1967 re faculty interest in environmental studies.  Madison campus special committee on environmental studies and committee on interdisciplinary studies and the future of man; their connections, people involved, accomplishments.  

00:20:06	Question re: new campus on west side.  

00:23:12	Activity of environmental studies committee.  Connection of report, establishment of school of Natural Resources, Dow chemical riots.  Problem of terminating an institution once its created.  RB involved in terminating statistics division.  

00:30:27	[End Tape 3/Side 2; begin tape 4] Question re sharing time between research and administrative and environmental issues.  Work with Dave Baerreis on environmental archeology program.  

00:35:04	Pilot project in IES, HEW funding, graduate program.  Joseph Wilson committee.  RB on the committee although records don't show it.  Mechanism whereby any faculty member could transfer to IES.  Verner Suomi an example, transferred from meteorology.  

00:37:37	Changing IES from graduate school to reporting to chancellor to better guarantee interdisciplinary mission; too much competition in graduate school.  Ed Young sympathetic to this move.  

00:43:11	Nominations for director of IES.  RB nominated himself, not the most popular, but Young thought he was least likely to get shot down.  Problem was one of survival.  

00:46:55	Rockefeller exploration money to go to IES, Kearl or Clodius' maneuvers to get in College of Agriculture.  IES finally got a half million.  

00:50:57	Carl Runge's meetings at his house re IES.  Paper by Kenneth Hare on IES.   

00:57:44	Question re: Hare's criticism of IES under Gerard Rohlich, characterized as small scale, unambitious, problem oriented.

01:00:21	[end tape 3; begin Tape 4] The early setup of IES and the politics involved. The Executive Committee and Advisory committee—how they prevented anyone from doing anything bad or good. The problem of merit raises. Shain’s changing of the executive committee structure. Disappointed people 

01:03:49	Members of the 1970 executive committee. RB’s appointment as director of IES--disappointed people thereafter (at not being appointed to associate director) and territorial disputes from Pound in Agriculture and Fox in Water Resources.

01:07:08	Later results of Glenn Pound cutting out Froker’s underlings upon his appointment as dean of Ag School. Bryson accused by Pound of writing a critical article in the Cap Times, when John Ross, his assoc. director, had written it. Reasons for John Ross’ leaving IES, for “simply a question of ethics.” The pain this episode caused RB.

01:13:23	Pound’s reaction to RB’s asking Ag faculty to collaborate with IES. RB’s views on “pecking order and territoriality.”

01:16:13	RB’s collaboration with Ross. Ross’ qualities as an administrator.

01:19:10	Chuck Engman. His work in the President’s office and eventual move to IES. His work maintaining the connection between Washington and IES.

01:22:29	Eric Rude’s transfer to IES. His involvement not working out, so moved to the Graduate School.

01:26:14	Difficulties of having John Ross and Chuck Engman working under RB.

01:27:54	Relationship between IES and the chancellor and vice chancellors Shain and Kearl. Kearl’s opposition to IES and RB.

01:31:00	[Tape 4/Side 2] Problems with Shain, Kearl, University committee; re IES course offerings, review of curriculum.  Biggest problem not undergraduate instruction but faculty appointments and number of graduate students.  Many students interested in IES, committees to guide their work.  Perceived as draining students from other departments.  New rule: students must work in a department for one year, then apply to IES.  This scared students away from UW.

01:38:35	Ph.D. program in IES: graduate program in environmental monitoring.  IES does not have a degree, but members of its faculty proposed this program—standing faculty committee with IES support.  Other degree programs.  

01:41:33	Students regard themselves as IES.  Mixed support from graduate school.  Story about hiring of Calvin Dewitt by Robert Bock.  Shared time in Biotron and at IES, fired from Biotron, IES blamed for keeping a poor faculty member.  IES stuck with Dewitt.

01:46:26	Question re 1971 letter to Shain criticizing IES advisory committee.  NSF institute grant for interdisciplinary work.  Fight with Gerald Stairs over dividing this money up between departments vs. coordinated interdisciplinary work.  Letter in part responds to a report by Stairs and Irving Fox.  

01:51:19	Failure of cooperative efforts with zoology and botany departments re ecology degree, which does not exist.

01:53:59	RB burned out.  Retirement plans.  Plans for the next year.  Reflections on his career. 

02:01:04	End of Second Interview Session

End of Oral History #320