BRADLEY, FRANCES SAGE, 1866-1949.
Frances Sage Bradley papers, 1893-1965

Restrictions on Access

Unrestricted access.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction.

Source

Gift, 1965.

Citation

[after identification of item(s)], Frances Sage Bradley papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Appraisal Note

In 2019, some medals in this collection were reappraised and deaccessioned. Appraisal decisions were made by Interim Head of Manuscript Processing Sarah Quigley.

Processing

Processed in 1975. Updated by Sarah E. Gardner, Student Processing Assistant, March 1995.

Biographical Note

Frances Sage Bradley was born on August 28, 1866 in Fort Gaines, Georgia, the daughter of Barzillai Yale Sage, well-known engineer and builder of the Georgia Air Line railroad, and Miranda (Royce) Sage. Her parents, natives of Connecticut, moved to Georgia in the decade preceding the Civil War. Frances Sage grew up in Atlanta, where she graduated from high school. She attended college in Plainsville, Ohio.

In 1885 Frances Sage married Horace James Bradley (1862-1896), a native Atlantan. At that time, Bradley was an accomplished young artist and illustrator, having received recognition for his portraits of Alexander H. Stephens and Benjamin Hill. He was one of the founding members of New York’s Art Student Leagues. In later years, he held the office of president and director of the League, and was its representative on the Board of Trustees of the American Fine Arts Society.

After their marriage, Horace and Frances Sage Bradley moved to New York, where Horace became associated with Harper’s Monthly and Harper’s Weekly magazines. From 1886 until his death, Horace Bradley was Art Editor and a contributor of illustrations for Harper’s. He also served as chief of the Fine Arts Department of the Cotton States International Exposition, held in Atlanta in 1895.

Horace Bradley died of tuberculosis on July 22, 1896. He left his young widow Frances with four children to support. Several months after her husband’s death, Frances Bradley enrolled as a medical student at the Medical College of the New York Infirmary, a unique medical school open to women students, with a faculty composed largely of women physicians. Frances Bradley studied there until 1898, when the Cornell University Medical School opened its doors to women in that year, she transferred, receiving her degree in 1899.

Dr. Bradley retained a private practice in Atlanta until 1914, when she became associated with the United States Children’s Bureau. This association resulted in a series of public health appointments for Dr. Bradley in the area of work with mothers and children in rural sections of the southern and western United States. In the early years of her association with the Children’s Bureau, Dr. Bradley traveled throughout the Appalachian region, conducting children’s clinics. Her work in this area was interrupted in 1918 by a brief Red Cross appointment in France, where she conducted clinics for war refugee children. After completion of this assignment, Dr. Bradley returned to the United States and resumed her previous association with the Children’s Bureau. In the early 1920s she again served in Appalachia. In 1924-1925 she was Director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene, Arkansas State Board of Health in 1826, Dr. Bradley became Acting Director of the Division of Child Welfare, Montana State Board of Health.

Other offices held by Dr. Bradley include Chairman for Georgia of the Committee for the Public Health Education Among Women of the American Medical Association, (1913), and Medical Directory, Children’s Bureau Exhibit, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, (1915).

Dr. Bradley retired from government service in 1928 and resided with her son, Horace Yale Bradley, in Washington, D.C. until her death in February 1949.Biographical source: The above biographical information on Horace James and Frances Sage Bradley was obtained from Frances Sage Bradley’s manuscript of an unfinished autobiography, obituaries, and notes compiled by members of the Bradley family and the late Miss Ella May Thornton, former State Librarian of Georgia. These materials are located in the Bradley Collection and collection folder. An article, “Acquisitions,” which appeared in the June, 1969 issue of the Atlanta Historical Society’s publication, The Atlanta Historical Bulletin (Vol. XIV, No. 2, pp. 63-65) also contains biographical information on Horace and Frances Bradley.

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of the papers of Frances Sage Bradley and her husband Horace Bradley from 1893-1965. The papers include correspondence, consisting largely of letters concerning Dr. Frances Bradley’s Children's Bureau work, especially in Arkansas and Montana, and publication of her stories in various periodicals, clippings, certificates, material relating to Dr. Bradley's Red Cross appointment in France in 1918, and a collection of French war and travel posters; photographs dealing with her public health work in rural areas of the southern and western U.S., and manuscripts of her short stories and her unfinished autobiography. Materials associated with Horace Bradley include books designed by the artist and some of his original sketches and printed drawings, and miscellaneous material. The collection also includes photographs of Horace and Frances Bradley and their children and Frances Bradley’s diploma from Cornell.

Arrangement Note

Arranged by subject.