She was the first female delegate at the 1908 Democratic National Convention[1][2] and later became the Colorado State Superintendent of Public Instruction, attaining national prominence through the work in her office.

[3] She was educated at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, with supplemental private instruction.

Bradford began teaching as a young married woman in Leadville, Colorado.

She was elected to the Colorado state superintendency in 1913, and served six terms in that office, until 1927.

[5] After suffrage was won, she helped organize the Colorado Women's Democratic Club, and ran for State Superintendent of Education in 1894 (she lost to another woman, Anjanette J.