Bradshaw family papers

Margaret Rooker Bradshaw was born in Delaware County, Missouri, on March 8, 1866. She was the daughter of John and Nancy Hampton Rooker. She received a B.A. degree from Hardin College. In 1890 she married Francis Elmer Bradshaw. The young married couple both attended Vanderbilt University where they each earned M.A. degrees in 1893.

The Bradshaws did graduate work at Yale University from 1893 to 1894. Francis Bradshaw accepted a teaching position at Vanderbilt for the following year. Their daughter Frances was born in 1895, and in October of that year Francis Bradshaw died of typhoid. Left a widow with an infant daughter, Margaret Bradshaw accepted a position as a teacher at Brookfield College where she stayed until 1900. She returned to Yale in 1900 to continue her graduate work and earned her Ph.D. in 1902.

In 1902 Margaret Bradshaw was offered a position as instructor in English at Smith College. She was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 1912 and continued teaching until she suffered a stroke in 1930. She died on September 27, 1946 in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where her daughter Frances Blanshard had lived when she was Swarthmore College's dean of women.