Guide to the James C. Bradley Papers,
1905-1962

James Bradley was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1884. He showed an early interest in natural history, especially insects, and published his first scientific paper at age 15. He obtained degrees at Cornell University (A.B. 1906, Ph.D. 1910) and the University of California (M.S. 1907). He served as an assistant professor of entomology at Cornell, 1911-1920, and professor and curator of invertebrate zoology, 1920-1952. As a field biology, Bradley joined or led several expeditions ranging from Canada to South America, including the joint Cornell-Harvard transcontinental motor car trip in 1917. He co-authored Insect Life, an insect manual for Boy Scouts, and was chairman of the committee that secured the site for Camp Barton (a Boy Scout camp near Ithaca, New York).

Includes Bradley's A Manual of the Genera of Beetles, North of Mexico; manuscripts for papers; lecture notes and teaching materials; field notebooks, drawings, and typed and handwritten notes; personal and professional correspondence; bibliographies; glass slides and mounted photographs of entomological subjects and expeditions, including the First Cornell University Biological Expedition to the Okefenoke Swamp in Georgia and a later expedition through Arizona and California, as well as a few Ithaca area scenes; photograph albums; includes much material on wasps. Also, correspondence with J. Henry Comstock and others.