Halfdan Bryn (20 May 1864 – 5 March 1933) was a
Norwegian physician and
physical anthropologist
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
.
Early life
Bryn was born in
Trondheim,
Norway, the son of physician Thomas Bryn (1813–1902) and Kristine Emilie Karoline Richter (1826–1869). He was a grandson of
Thomas Bryn, Sr., and a brother of
Knud Ørn Bryn and
Alfred Jørgen Bryn
Alfred Jørgen Bryn (29 May 1862 – 3 August 1937) was a Norwegian patent engineer.
Personal life
Bryn was born in Trondheim as the son of Thomas Bryn and Kristine Emilie Karoline Richter. He was a grandson of Constitutional Father Thomas Bryn, ...
. In November 1892, he married Wilhelmine "Willa" Thane (1873–1929). He was also an uncle of
Alf Bonnevie Bryn
Alf Bonnevie Bryn (26 August 1889 – 12 September 1949) was a Norwegian patent engineer, mountaineer, golf player, novelist and non-fiction writer.
Personal life
Bryn was born in Kristiania, the son of Alfred Jørgen Bryn and a grandson of ...
and Finn Bryn.
Bryn took his
examen artium in 1882 and graduated
cand.med.
Candidate of Medicine ( la, candidatus medicinae (male), ''candidata medicinae'' (female), abbreviated cand. med.) is an academic degree awarded in Denmark, Iceland, and Norway following a six-year medical school education.
Medical students in ...
from the
University of Oslo in 1889.
Military career
Bryn first practiced as a physician in
Dakota and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
between 1890 and 1891, before working as a
chief resident at the hospital in Trondheim from 1891 to 1892, and then starting his own medical practice. However, he was conscripted as an army doctor, at first with the rank of
lieutenant. He served at first as a military doctor in Trondheim, from 1894 holding the rank of captain. He was head of the Decorative Line Company from 1901 to 1904 and of the land conservation partnership from 1904 to 1907. In 1911, he was appointed
brigade major and from 1916 was medical physician to the
5th Brigade, remaining in this position until 1924, when he was discharged from the military.
[
As an army doctor, Bryn had good opportunities to study men from different parts of the country. His work with military recruits inspired him to do research on ]physical anthropology
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct Hominini, hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly ...
. Recognizing his interest, Colonel Hans Daae made it possible for him to conduct studies in the field, sometimes almost on a full-time basis. In 1914, he published his first anthropological work, ''Anthropological surveys I'', and in 1917, he won the King Haakon VII gold medal for another work. That same year he received a scholarship from the Nansen Fund for conducting anthropological studies in Norway.[
]
Anthropological career
After Bryn left the military, he concentrated on anthropological research. Despite his relatively advanced age, he was extremely productive and provided a number of interesting contributions to the country's anthropology, at a time when industrialization and restructuring of society had not yet managed to put their mark on the population. Already in 1921, he had presented two remarkable works, ''Selbu'' and ''Tydal'' and also published the controversial article ''En nordisk Cro-Magnon type'', which claimed that people in Tydal were descendants of the Cro-Magnon
Early European modern humans (EEMH), or Cro-Magnons, were the first early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') to settle in Europe, migrating from Western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They ...
. He released volume one of the uncompleted work ''Anthropologia Norwegica'' in 1925, and ''Die Somatologie der Norweger'' together with Kristian Schreiner
Kristian Schreiner (29 July 1874 – 3 May 1957) was a Norwegian professor of medicine.
He was born in Ekeberg as a son of wholesaler Christian Emil Schreiner (1829–1879) and Bethy Gerhardine Bødtker (1832–1910). He was a relative of educato ...
in 1929. In 1932, he published ''Norwegische Samen'', being one of the first to take an interest in the physical anthropology of the Sami people
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...
.[
Despite not holding a doctoral degree, Bryn was a fellow of the learned societies Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 1892, and of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1923.][ He was also a member of Trondhjem city council from 1898 to 1914 and, in 1919, he was invited to join the Norwegian Society for Heredity Research. From 1921 to 1922, he chaired the ]Norwegian Medical Association The Norwegian Medical Association ( no, Den norske lægeforening (1886–2008), spelled ''Den norske legeforening'' since 2008) is the main Norwegian medical association and trade union, and was founded in 1886. It has 32 555 members (as of 2016) o ...
. From 1926 to 1933, he served as praeses of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, during which time he received an honorary degree from Uppsala University in 1927.
Bryn initially experienced great success and influence through his earlier works; for instance in 1920 he was referred to as "Norway's most famous anthropologist" by Kristian Emil Schreiner. At this time Bryn was considered a well-established and fairly uncontroversial member of Norwegian academia. Norway's leading academic contemporaries on issues of genetics and heredity such as Kristinne Bonnevie, Otto Lous Mohr Kristian & Alette Schreiner belonged to his academic circle.
Toward the later years of his life the same prominent members of that society would develop a more critical attitude towards his research methods; he would become a controversial figure among anthropologists. This was due to Bryn's contributions to scientific racism; his tendency to promote unorthodox, speculative, anthropological theories from scant and inconclusive evidence.
He was a close colleague of the notorious racial theorist Hans F. K. Günther
Hans Friedrich Karl Günther (16 February 1891 – 25 September 1968) was a German writer, an advocate of scientific racism and a eugenicist in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. He was also known as "''Rassengünther''" ("Race Günther") ...
, and collaborated with Herman Lundborg
Herman Bernhard Lundborg (April 7, 1868 in Väse in Värmland, Sweden – May 9, 1943 in Östhammar in Uppland, Sweden) was a Swedish physician and a race biologist.
Biography
He graduated in medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in 1895, and re ...
at the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology, Statens institut för rasbiologi
The State Institute for Racial Biology (SIRB, sv, Statens institut för rasbiologi, SIFR) was a Swedish governmental research institute founded in 1922 with the stated purpose of studying eugenics and human genetics. It was the most prominent i ...
. His views on race were typical of nordicist Nordic race ideas during the interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. He viewed populations from Northern and Coastal Norway as bastardized populations of Nordic; dolichocephalic and brachycephalic; Lappish and Alpine stock. Bryn also referred to the populations of Trondheim and Møre as "inordinately well mixed bastard populations".
One of Halfdan Bryn's correspondents for a short period in the early 1920s, who would eventually become a colleague, was Norway's leading eugenicist and racial hygienicist, Jon Alfred Mjøen. Contemporary academics such as Kristine Bonnevie and the Schreiners, viewed Mjøen as a dilettante. As Mjøen's controversial theories, and related activism, caused him to become ever more alienated from Norwegian academia, Bryn - whose his research was relevant to Mjøen's theories - was sometimes called upon to correct Mjøen by his colleagues.[Kyllingstad, Jon Røyne. Kortskaller og langskaller. Scandinavian Academic Press, 2004, p. 164.] Bryn however, proved disinclined to do this, as he seemed to agree with much of Mjøen's work, and eventually allied himself with Mjøen to the exclusion of his former colleagues. He joined the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations under Mjøen's behest, but did not take an active interest in the organization. He died in March 1933, in Trondheim (the new city name from 1931).[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryn, Halfdan
1864 births
1933 deaths
Scientists from Trondheim
University of Oslo alumni
Norwegian expatriates in the United States
Norwegian military doctors
Norwegian Army personnel
Norwegian anthropologists
Physical anthropologists
Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters
Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters