Scope and Content Note
The William B. Bradbury Collection was given to the Library of Congress in 1976 and 2000 by Joan M. Undeland, Bradbury's great-great-granddaughter. These materials complemented a number of Bradbury's holograph and first-edition printed musical scores that were given to the Library of Congress by Hubert P. Main and others earlier in the 20th century.
Notable in the collection is an autograph musical sketchbook that Bradbury compiled between 1847 and 1849 when he was studying in Europe. This sketchbook contains short musical sketches by some of Bradbury's contemporaries, including Franz Abt, Niels Gade, Joseph Joachim, Jenny Lind, Albert Lorzing, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Ignaz Moscheles, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Louis Spohr, Marianne Spohr, Richard Wagner, and others. Sketches by Felix Mendelssohn, Walter Damrosch, Ignaz Paderewski and Felix Mendelssohn were added later. The album also contains two non-musical entries, a watercolor sketch by Susette Hauptmann, and a letter to Bradbury from Felix Mendelssohn that C. F. Becker added to the album in 1849.
All of the compositions by Bradbury in the collection are secular, even though he composed over 800 hymn-tunes. One of these works, Bradbury's Song of the south, may be in his own hand.
An unpublished biography entitled "William B. Bradbury, His Life and Times" that was written by his granddaughter, Elma Marvin, and a biographical letter written in 1928 by Bradbury's son are also found in the collection. A letterpress book in the collection contains correspondence relative to Bradbury's music publications during the early 1860s.
Photographs in the collection include those of Bradbury, his wife, Ada Esther Fessender Bradbury, and his piano, which was manufactured by his company, Light, Newton & Bradbury.
The status of the literary rights of the unpublished materials in the William B. Bradbury Collection is unknown.