Laura Mary Bragg was born in Northbridge, Massachusetts. At the age of 6, she contracted scarlet fever that caused her an incurable hearing loss, for which she compensated by reading lips and having an exceptional memory. She was home-schooled by private tutors until high school and afterward attended Simmons College, earning a degree in library science. At 25, she started to work as a librarian, first in Maine and then at one of the libraries in New York City. In 1909, at the age of 28, Bragg began her career at the Charleston Museum in South Carolina. She started as a librarian and soon got promoted to curate books and public instruction. In this position, she developed the first educational program of the museum, which was the first in a southern museum to welcome all visitors, regardless of their race. Bragg saw herself as a social missionary, believing that a museum is not only a visitors’ attraction but a teaching tool that should be available to everyone, including those who are unable to visit it. To execute her ideas, she developed traveling school exhibits that became known as “Bragg Boxes” – wooden boxes opened into a display set of local natural history or cultural history. The boxes were distributed to all the schools in the region, white and black, urban and rural. The Bragg Boxes had an immediate success and were incorporated in other museums as well. In 1921, 40 years old Bragg was named the director of the Charleston Museum – the first woman in the US to run a publicly funded art museum. Under her leadership, the museum had weekly opening hours for black visitors. She expanded the museum’s field by creating connections with the American Alliance of Museums, where she was later appointed as a board member. In 1931, Bragg added public reading rooms to the museum and established the first free library in Charleston, in which she served as a trustee and librarian. Bragg received national acclaim for her work at the Charleston Museum, and in 1930 she was asked to become the director of the Berkshire Museum. At the time, the museum had exhibited a small family collection, and Bragg developed it into an educational institute. She expanded the exhibitions, turned its yard into a sculpture gallery, and hosted performing artists. Within a year, the museum had doubled the number of visitors. After nine years, she retired from directing the museum and returned to Charleston to work as an educator at the museum’s library. Bragg’s interest in art and education expanded outside her work in the museums. In 1920, she was a part of the Charleston Renaissance, alongside artists such as Alice Ravenel Huger, DuBose Heyward, and Josephine Pinckney, and co-founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina, the Southern Museum Conference, and the Southern States Art League. Bragg died at the age of 97 in Charleston. Learn more about Bragg and other pioneer women of Charleston in one of these guided tours: Charleston’s Strong Women of the South History Tour Historic Women of Charleston Guided Walking Tour Amazing Ladies of Charleston Walking Tour Read more...