BRYANT, Keith L(ynn), Jr. 1937-

PERSONAL:

Born November 6, 1937, in Oklahoma City, OK; son of Keith L. (a contractor) and Elsie Lillian (Furman; a homemaker) Bryant; married Margaret Anna Burum (a teacher), August 11, 1962; children: Jennifer Lynne, Craig Warne. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of Oklahoma, B.S., 1959, M.Ed., 1961; University of Missouri, Ph.D., 1965. Politics: Independent. Religion: Presbyterian. Hobbies and other interests: Traveling, reading.

ADDRESSES:

Home—P.O. Box 5366, Bryan, TX 77805-5366.

CAREER:

University of Missouri, Columbia, assistant instructor in history, 1962-65; University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, assistant professor, 1965-68, associate professor, 1968-71, professor of history, 1971-76; Texas A & M, College of Liberal Arts, College Station, TX, professor of history, 1976-1988, history department chair, 1976-80, dean, 1980-84; University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, professor of history and department chair, 1988-2001; professor emeritus, 2001—. President, Southwest Conference Humanities consortium, 1982-83; Edward Cadenhead Lecturer, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, 1988. Military service: U.S. Army Reserve, 1959-60; became first lieutenant.

MEMBER:

Railway and Locomotive Historical Society (member, board of directors, 2004—), Texas State Historical Association, Lexington Group in Transportation History (vice president, 2001—), Southern Historical Association, Western History Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

William H. Kiekhofer Memorial Teaching Award for excellence in teaching, University of Wisconsin, 1968; American Philosophical Society research grant, 1968; National Endowment for the Humanities grant, 1984; George W. and Constance M. Hilton Book Award, Railway and Locomotive History Society, 1990; David P. Morgan Award, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Alfalfa Bill Murray, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 1968.

Arthur E. Stilwell: Promoter with a Hunch, Vanderbilt University Press (Nashville, TN), 1971.

History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1974, Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1982.

(With Henry C. Dethloff) Entrepreneurship: A U.S. Perspective, Texas A & M University (College Station, TX), 1983.

(With Henry C. Dethloff) A History of American Business (textbook), Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1983, 1990.

(Editor) Railroads in the Age of Regulation, 1990-1980, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1988.

William Merritt Chase: A Genteel Bohemian, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1991.

Railway Station Architecture in Scandinavia: A Survey, Railroad Station Historical Society (Crete, NE), 1995.

Culture in the American Southwest: The Earth, the Sky, the People, Texas A & M University (College Station, TX), 2001.

Member of board of editors, Railroad History, 1980—, Western Historical Quarterly, 1984-87, and Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 1984-87. Contributor of articles and reviews to historical journals, including Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Labor History, Journal of Southern History, Social Science Quarterly, Western Historical Quarterly, Railroad History, and Missouri Historical Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

"The Development of Railroads in North America."

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Keith L. Bryant, Jr., has written about a number of topics, including railroads, business, and the American Southwest. Over a two-decade period, Bryant, a longtime member of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, published a trio of books on aspects of railways: History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, Railroads in the Age of Regulation, 1990-1980, and Railway Station Architecture in Scandinavia: A Survey. As editor of the encyclopedic Railroads in the Age of Regulation, he oversaw the creation by twenty-one contributors of nearly 200 entries, mostly biographies of railroad leaders and company histories, but also entries that explained advances in technology. Library Journal contributor Paul B. Cors wrote that this volume, the first in a projected fifty-volume series about American business history and biography, earned praise for its "unmatched" range of biographical coverage. According to Business History Review writer John Lauritz Larson, although Bryant's introduction demonstrates a "bias favorable to management and unfavorable to government and organized labor," overall the entries' "balanced coverage, lively presentation, significant interpretation, and clean prose" make this encyclopedia noteworthy.

Several of Bryant's studies focus on American culture, such as his biography William Merritt Chase: A Genteel Bohemian and Culture in the American Southwest: The Earth, the Sky, the People, published a decade apart. William Merritt Chase, a "handsome and interesting book," in the view of Library Journal contributor Mary Hamel-Schwulst, chronicles the life of Chase, an influential American painter at the turn of the twentieth century. The later work is an overview of the rise of cultural institutions in the American Southwest, an area that extends from Texas to California for Bryant's purposes. Several reviewers wrote of the work's methodology. For example, Journal of Southern History reviewer Kate S. Kirkland noted that "Bryant does not engage effectively the considerable scholarship that grapples with contested meanings of 'culture,' 'regionalism,' and 'Southwest.'" Moreover, a lack of inclusiveness affected the work because Bryant focuses on how Native American and Hispanic arts influenced each other, but omits from analysis the involvement of Asian Americans. Despite any shortcomings, Library Journal contributor Deborah Bigelow concluded that Bryant "ably captures the essence" of the region.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 1976, review of History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, p. 1237; June, 1992, Abraham A. Davidson, review of William Merritt Chase: A Genteel Bohemian, pp. 950-951; December, 2002, Dan Flores, review of Culture in the American Southwest: The Earth, the Sky, and the People, p. 1566.

American Reference Books Annual, Volume 20, 1989, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, 1900-1980, p. 90.

Booklist, August, 1988, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 1901.

Book Report, November, 1988, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 48.

Business History Review, winter, 1975, review of History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, p. 518; fall, 1983, Naomi R. Lamoreaux, review of A History of American Business, pp. 417-418; fall, 1989, John Lauritz Larson, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, pp. 677-678.

Choice, October, 1988, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 288; September, 2001, C. K. Piehl, review of Culture in the American Southwest, p. 210.

Economic Books: Current Selections, March, 1984, review of A History of American Business, p. 9.

History: Reviews of New Books, February, 1984, review of A History of American Business, p. 69.

Journal of American History, June, 1978, review of History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, p. 188; March, 1991, K. Austin Kerr, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, pp. 1474-1475; June, 1992, Roger B. Stein, review of William Merritt Chase, pp. 292-293.

Journal of Economic History, March, 1990, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 222.

Journal of Economic Literature, September, 1989, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 1231.

Journal of Southern History, August, 2002, Kate S. Kirkland, review of Culture in the American Southwest, pp. 727-728.

Journal of the West, Kerry R. Oman, review of Culture in the American Southwest, p. 104.

Library Journal, April 1, 1975, review of History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, p. 661; June 15, 1988, Paul B. Cors, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 53; May 1, 1991, Mary Hamel-Schwulst, review of William Merritt Chase, p. 83; December, 2000, Deborah Bigelow, review of Culture in the American Southwest, p. 164.

Pacific Historical Review, February, 1977, review of History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, p. 130; May, 2003, David M. Wrobel, review of Culture in the American Southwest.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 1988, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 13; April, 1990, review of A History of American Business (second edition), p. 12.

University Press Book News, September, 1991, review of William Merritt Chase, p. 23.

Western Historical Quarterly, spring, 2003, Michael Duchemin, review of Culture in the American Southwest, pp. 86-87.

Wilson Library Bulletin, May, 1988, James Rettig, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 112; winter, 1994, review of Railroads in the Age of Regulation, p. 37.