Arthur Peyton Bryant helped Wilbur Atwater compile in 1896 the standard U.S. reference for food composition which was used until the 1940s. Entitled The Chemical Composition of American Food Materials, it was popularly known as Bulletin No. 28. A graduate student at the time, Bryant was on a USDA fellowship working with Atwater at the Connecticut Agricultural Station.
Bryant had been laid off from his job teaching chemistry at Swarthmore College during the depression of 1894 and returned to school at his alma mater, Connecticut Wesleyan in Middletown. There he worked as the “Expert Chemical Tabulator” at the Agricultural Station and co-authored with Atwater a series of USDA publications on diet.
In 1902, Bryant left to become chief chemist for the new Corn Products Company in Chicago. Shortly after that, he moved to Clinton, Iowa, where became chief chemist at the Clinton Corn Sugar Refining Company and remained there until his death in 1935. Bryant also served several decades as a consulting chemist to candy trade associations.
References: Ind. Eng. Chem. 25: 1178, 1933
