Page 7 - 2014-Fall-Newsletter

Special Collections: TCU Press
New Releases
The Bryson Club
Get started on your holiday gift shopping with
these new releases: El Paso 120, Restaurantes,
rumba u mas: A Gringo’s Guide to Latino Fort Worth
and Deep in the Art of Texas.

Visit TCU Press at http://www.prs.tcu.edu/

Photographs from Bryson Club Collection 7
- including (from left) members in 1924
Horned Frog Yearbook, club crest (1938)
and Professor Walter Bryson 1922

In 1923, the TCU English department fashioned the Bryson Club, in memory
of TCU English Professor Walter E. Bryson. The club prided itself in
encouraging students in the creation of literature. By doing so, the Bryson Club
invited outstanding junior and senior English majors with a 3.0 GPA or higher
to join and attend bi-monthly meetings in which students submitted and read
approved manuscripts, plays, poems, essays or short stories.

TCU English Professors Mabel Major and Rebecca Smith Lee were the club’s
first faculty advisors. In 1933, Lorraine Sherley took over as advisor, guiding
the club for more than 50 years until her death in 1984. In 1981, Ernest Allen
became co-advisor and donated the club’s records to TCU prior to his death in
2007.

In an effort to increase the club’s membership, in 1935, the club extended
offers to join to upperclassmen other than English majors. In 1938, the
organization established a scholarship fund that would assist qualified club
members and in 1961, members renamed the fund to the Walter E. Bryson
Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Club Facts: The Bryson Club crest was the Bryson Buxton shield. It bore a
Horned Frog and three stars signifying social and physical health, scholarship
and leadership. The club colors were white, blue and gold. Club motto: “Do it
with thy might.”

The Bryson Club records include documentation on club membership,
meetings, finances and the organizational constitution. Correspondence,
newspaper clippings, artifacts, guest books and photographs of meetings,
initiations and parties are also in the collection.

Fall 2014