University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives. All rights reserved.
The materials were donated to the UCF Libraries in 1972 as a part of the William L. Bryant Collection.
Collection processed by Karoline Correa in 2006.
The entire collection is open for research.
Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder
Bryant West Indies Audio Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, FL.
The Bryant West Indies Collection is ascholarly collection of over
1,800 books and periodicals on the history, geography, economy, and social life
of the West Indies and the Caribbean area. The collection also includes
paintings, graphics, sculptures, maps, sound recordings, and anthropological
artifacts. More information may be found on our
Books may be found in the online catalog by searching the series: West Indies Collection.
William Junior Bryant, or June, as he preferred to be called, was born May 4, 1904 in Springfield Vermont. He attended Springfield High School and Phillips Exeter Academy, going on to graduate from Dartmouth College in 1925. He started working for Bryant Chucking Grinding Co., a machine tool company founded by his father, William Leroy Bryant. From 1928 to 1946, Bryant worked his way up through the ranks within Bryant Chucking Grinding Co. to become President in 1946. The years following were busy for Bryant, he was involved in many community related activities as well as beginning serious work in his own philanthropic areas of interest. He started the William L. Bryant Foundation in 1950, named for his father, to begin excavations in Florida, Spain and the Caribbean. The Foundation helped Bryant to pursue his interest in archeology which fueled his passion for collecting works of art, cultural and ethnic items and books.
June Bryant lived in Woodstock, VT from May until November, moving to the warmer climate of Tangerine, FL from November until May, each year, after retiring from the Bryant Chucking Grinding Co. in 1960. It was in this time that Bryant was able to dedicate more time to his other pursuits. Over the years he had started collecting works of art from areas in Spain, Florida and the Caribbean. His collection of Spanish works was eventually given to Dartmouth College, where they are now housed in the Baker Library. The papers of the William L. Bryant Foundation and the papers of William Junior Bryant and Bryant Family are housed in the Rauner Special Collection Library, also at Dartmouth College. His West Indies collection found a home in the Central Florida Museum.
The Florida and Caribbean works were collected over a period of twenty years, beginning in the early 1960s. Bryant purchased some of the collection himself, but a considerable amount of the purchasing was done by Eleanor Sleight. She was the director of the Central Florida Museum in the late 1960s and later became the representative of the William L. Bryant Foundation. A large part of the collection was gathered in the trips Sleight took to the islands from 1969-1972. Bryant also acquired materials via catalogs from both the islands and in the U.S. Some of the paintings were acquired in the same manner; however, Bryant also purchased a large part of the art collection from a dealer in New York.
The Bryant West Indies Collection was moved in 1972 from the Central Florida Museum to the library of Florida Technological University, now University of Central Florida. Bryant thought it was important to keep the collection in Florida where he felt it would be better valued due to the close proximity to the West Indies. The Bryant West Indies Collection is displayed yearly in the library and is continually used for research and teaching by the faculty and students of the University of Central Florida.
The Bryant West Indies Audio Collection contains 62 audio cassette tapes and 85 vinyl record albums, all containing various genres of music from the Caribbean Islands. These records and cassettes were purchased or collected on trips sponsored by the William L. Bryant Foundation, where books and art indigenous to the region were gathered, as well as photographs taken of local life and culture. They are organized alphabetically. The content of these cassettes and records vary and include folk music and song, cult music, dances, Latin jazz, sambas, mambos, boleros, rumbas, meringues, calypsos, and religious song.
All of the albums on cassettes are duplicates of the albums on records, except for one cassette being an original. All of the albums contain music that originated from the Caribbean Islands. While most of the music may be familiar, for instance, Latin Jazz, calypso, samba, mambo, etc., a good portion of the music is folk music, folk dance and cult music, indigenous to the islands of the Caribbean. The islands became home to many different peoples, some brought there against their will, others coming of their own choice, a new culture had developed and with it many distinct varieties of music. This audio collection gives the listener a wide-ranging scope of music that portrays a culture and a way of life from a different perspective.
Items arranged alphabetically.
Unless noted, all materials have a phonograph record and a audio cassette tape.