In 1860, after being inspired by her friend Anne Whitney, she enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia with William Trost Richards and became very close to his family.
Early career and education īridges, however, soon abandoned teaching in order to concentrate on her drawing lessons. Eliza died in 1856 of tuberculosis, and Fidelia and her older sister Elizabeth then ran the school. The Bridges moved to Brooklyn, too, and in 1854 Eliza established a school there. After she regained her health, Fidelia became a live-in mother's helper in the household of William Augustus Brown, a Quaker who had been a Salem ship-holder before moving to Brooklyn, New York, where he became a successful wholesale produce merchant. She became a friend of the artist and art school owner Anne Whitney. įidelia took up drawing during her convalescence from an illness. Fidelia's older sister Eliza was a schoolteacher and became the guardian of her younger siblings. They were living at 100 Essex Street, now known as the Fidelia Bridges Guest House, but moved to a more affordable home on the same street after their parents' death. The couple left four children, Eliza, Elizabeth, Fidelia, and Henry. Eliza died in March 1850, just three hours before the news of her husband's death arrived in Salem. In 1849, Henry Bridges fell ill and was taken to Portuguese Macau, where he died in December. She was orphaned at the age of fifteen when her mother and father died within months of each other.
Fidelia Bridges, May one of a series of twelve color print illustrations, 1876, collection of the Boston Public Library.įidelia Bridges was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to Henry Gardiner Bridges (1789-1849), a sea captain, and Eliza (Chadwick) Bridges (1791-1850).