ACSA/AIA R-17 Committee for Architectural Education records, 1951-1967

Series 1 of this collection, which relates to Bush-Brown's early life as well as to the families of Bush-Brown and his wife, Marjorie Conant Bush-Brown, is subdivided into three subseries. The first of these subseries contains correspondence to Harold Bush-Brown from various members of his family, including his mother, painter Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown; his father, sculptor Henry Kirke Bush-Brown; his siblings; and his wife. Much of this correspondence dates from the latter part of World War I, when Bush-Brown was serving in the U.S. Navy as an ensign and lieutenant on the submarine base in New London, Connecticut. The subjects covered in this correspondence include the wartime activities of Bush-Brown's brother Jim (who later became a landscape architect) and sister Lydia (who became an artist); the end of the war and its impact on the Bush-Brown family; and the activities of Bush-Brown's parents. Series 1, subseries 2 consists largely of financial records of Marjorie Conant Bush-Brown's relatives, most notably those of her father, James S. Conant, but also those of her brother, chemist and Harvard President James Bryant Conant; her sister, Esther Conant; and her mother, Jennet O. Conant. The datebooks of James S. Conant, in which he kept brief records of his daily activities from 1899 to 1922, are also included in this subseries. The third subseries of Series 1 contains Harold Bush-Brown's notebooks that he kept throughout his life to record drafts of correspondence and notes on readings. Once he became a professor at Georgia Tech, Bush-Brown used small notebooks to record his lecture notes (these are housed in Series 2), and during his retirement he used the notebooks to write drafts of book chapters and to make notes on marketing the book once it was published. Bush-Brown's notes from college courses and a few of his student papers are also included here.

Series 2 is made up of Bush-Brown's papers during his years at Georgia Tech, 1922 to 1957. Although much of the material relates to Bush-Brown's activities as chair of the Department of Architecture -- included are annual reports, lecture notes, notes on architectural education, faculty housing, and other administrative subjects -- there is also significant documentation of his involvement in the Harvard Club and his service as an officer in the Georgia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Some documentation of his work for the Library of Congress' Historic American Buildings Survey, as well as some material on his architectural designs for private houses in Atlanta and buildings on the Georgia Tech campus (particularly the Architecture Building and the Aeronautics Building) also forms part of this series.

Series 3 documents Bush-Brown's service during the late 1950s and early 1960s as chairperson of the joint committee for architectural education of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects. The papers in this series contain correspondence, minutes of the Board of Directors, financial information, programs, proceedings, and other materials relating to the summer teaching seminars operated by this joint committee.

Series 4, which covers Bush-Brown's retirement years (mainly after his service on the ACSA/AIA committee ended in 1962), is subdivided into two subseries. The first of these contains correspondence, publications, files on his trips to Europe with his wife, and notes on the Duxbury Library and its addition, which Bush-Brown designed and built in 1968. The second subseries consists of drafts, notes, and correspondence regarding Bush-Brown's book, Beaux Arts to Bauhaus and Beyond: An Architect's Perspective, published in 1976. The various drafts included in this series document the metamorphosis of the book from a focus on the Duxbury Library to a full-blown memoir. The changing title of the drafts reflect this metamorphosis.