Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois
In 1892 the Parsons Horological School, the first in America established to train watchmakers, was acquired by Lydia Moss Bradley and relocated to Peoria. In November 1896 Mrs. Bradley chartered the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, merging the horological program with liberal arts and other subjects, including home economics. The following October classes began in the school’s two still uncompleted buildings.
Bradley’s was born in 1816 in Vevay, Indiana. In 1837 she married Tobias Bradley and a decade later she, her husband, and their children moved to Peoria, where Tobias was a successful entrepreneur and banking executive, profitably acquiring real estate around the growing area. Lydia and Tobias had six children together, all of whom died of various frontier illnesses.
Tobias and Lydia frequently discussed creating an orphanage in Peoria, in memory of their lost children, and Tobias often discussed the creation of a school in the town. In 1867 he died in a carriage accident, leaving Lydia a childless widow. He left an estate of nearly half a million dollars, including stock in the First National Bank of Peoria, which he had founded and served as its president. Mrs. Bradley joined the bank’s board of directors in 1875.
Mrs. Bradley managed rental properties and other investments, doubling her fortune by 1885 when she hired a business manager. Within a decade it had doubled again, through land reclamation and other projects. She used her fortune to create in Peoria a Children’s Home, built a Universalist Church, and financed the construction of a home for elderly women with no family to care for them. She also donated land to the Society of Saint Francis on which they built a hospital.
Mrs. Bradley accomplished all of this philanthropy, as well as much more, at a time when women weren’t allowed to vote, and few colleges were co-educational. The school she founded, which became Bradley University in 1920, was open to both men and women. She died in January 1908 following a brief illness during which she was confined to her home. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998, and is honored by a statue of her on Founder’s Circle at Bradley University.