Bradford, Gamaliel, 1863-1932

Gamaliel Bradford (1863-1932) was an American biographical essayist, poet, dramatist, and critic of Wellesley, Mass. He was the sixth of seven Gamaliel Bradfords in unbroken succession, of whom the first was a great-grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. He entered Harvard College with the Class of 1886, but withdrew after a few weeks due to fragile health, a problem that was to plague him his entire life. He married Helen Hubbard Ford. Bradford attempted virtually every type of creative writing known in his time though his published writings were mostly unsuccessful until the publication of Lee the American (1912). He is best known for his development of the "psychograph," a type of biography that focuses on analyzing personality rather than providing a chronological account of a subject's life. He produced 13 biographical-sketch volumes between 1917 and 1932, as well as numerous single-person biographies. In his later years, Bradford had a habit of typing one page per day of about 350 words in a personal journal. About one-seventh of these journal entries and much of his correspondence was published in the volumes: The journal of Gamaliel Bradford, 1883-1932, edited by Van Wyck Brooks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933; and The letters of Gamaliel Bradford, 1918-1931, edited by Van Wyck Brooks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin company, 1934.