Gamaliel Bradford

Bradford, Gamaliel (1863–1932), Massachusetts author, who at age 50 found his most successful medium when he published Lee, the American (1912). This book employed a method he described as “psychography,” which aims to extract the essential, permanent, and vitally characteristic strands out of the continuous texture of a man's entire life. Applying this subjective, analytical technique, Bradford wrote a great many other sketches, published in such books as Confederate Portraits (1914); Portraits of Women (1916); Union Portraits (1916); American Portraits (1922); Damaged Souls (1923), perhaps his best‐known book, dealing with such Americans as Aaron Burr, P.T. Barnum, John Randolph, and Thomas Paine; Wives (1925); As God Made Them (1929); Daughters of Eve (1930); and The Quick and the Dead (1931). His autobiographical works include A Naturalist of Souls (1917), Life and I (1928), and his Journal (1933), edited by Van Wyck Brooks.

Gamaliel Bradford 1863-1932, American biographer, b. Boston. After many unsuccessful years as a writer, he achieved literary fame as a biographer with his Lee, the American (1912). He perfected the method of writing "psychographs," or short portraits of historical figures. His works in this area include Confederate Portraits (1914), Union Portraits (1916), and Damaged Souls (1923).

Bibliography: See his autobiographical Life and I (1928) and his journal (1933) and letters (1934), both edited by V. W. Brooks.