Thomas Archer “Tom” Bryson III was born March 16, 1931 in Savannah, Georgia. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard the U.S.S. Henrico during the Korean Conflict 1950-1954. Bryson received an A.B. degree in History from Georgia Southern College in 1958, an M.A. degree in History from the University of Georgia in 1960, and a PhD in History from the University of Georgia in 1965. His dissertation was entitled Woodrow Wilson, the Senate, Public Opinion and the Armenian Mandate Question, 1919-1920.

He married Olivia Anne Sloss in 1960. They were the parents of two children: Olivia Anne Bryson and Thomas Sloss Bryson. Bryson taught at Savannah High School, the University of Georgia, and DeKalb College before coming to West Georgia College in 1967 as assistant professor of history. He was promoted to associate professor in 1972. Dr. Bryson died suddenly on June 10, 1980, having recently been promoted to professor effective September 1980. His primary research interest was United States-Middle East relations.

Bryson was a member of the American Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the National Society for Armenian Studies.

He was the author of more than thirty articles and seven books including American Diplomacy in the Middle East (1975), Walter George Smith (1977), American Diplomatic Relations With the Middle East, 1784-1975: A Survey (1977), An American Consular Officer in the Middle East in the Jacksonian Era: A Biography of William Brown Hodgson, 1801-1871 (1979), United States/Middle East Diplomatic Relations: An Annotated Bibliography, 1784-1978 (1979), Tars, Turks, and Tankers: the Role of the United States Navy in the Middle East, 1800-1979 (1980), and Seeds of Mideast Crisis: the United States Diplomatic Role in the Middle East During World War II (1981).