Bratton Family Collection

The materials in this collection provide context around the quilts and coverlets created by Bratton and Rackle that are included in the Art Collection. This collection contains images of objects 2018.17.1 through 2018.17.5 as well as posed portraits and images of women weaving, possibly Bratton and Rackle. Also included is a signed copy of The Sunbonnet Babies Primer by Eulalie Osgood Grover, which served as inspiration for Rackle’s “Sunbonnet Babies Crib Quilt,” object 2018.17.4. More broadly, the contents of this collection provide context for women’s labor and textile work in the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries and thus may be of interest to historians researching labor history, women’s history, or the history of textile arts, particularly weaving.

The collection includes two journals written by Florence Dodge Morton Bratton.

The first journal, labeled FDM Bratton on the cover in pencil, spans from March 1882 to March 1883. In it Bratton chronicles her day-to-day housework and activities including sewing projects, church outings, and caring for her young daughters, Fanny and Theodora. Later entries discuss the illness and death of Fanny (7 September 1882 - 14 February 1883) from tubercular meningitis, as well as the subsequent illness of husband William, who died on 8 March 1883 at the age of 29. The journal includes a newspaper clipping reporting the deaths of both William and Fanny. At least one page of writing has been torn from the journal.

The second journal includes various names, locations, and dates, as well as knot diagrams on the inside front cover and front page. Many pages of writing have been torn out of the journal. The remaining entries are dated from 1915 to 1942 and describe Bratton’s housework, visits with family and friends, travels, lectures, textile work, and her own health. This journal comes with a separate index, written by the donor, which highlights where in the journal Bratton mentions her textile work.

Both journals contain pages that have been torn out sometime after they were written, but before they were donated. It is unclear when these pages were removed or by whom.