Jane Bragg was born in Birmingham, England in 1825. She was the second daughter of a family with four sisters, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, Caroline and Maria and five brothers, Thomas, John, William, Joseph and Robert Bragg. She received an education at a private school in England and soon became a tutor for the institution. In 1844, Bragg was accredited with writing the children's bookBirds and insects: Dialogues in prose and verse, illustrative of their habits and instinct. In 1844, she took a phonography class lead by Benjamin and Isaac Pitman. In 1849, she married Benjamin Pitman. In June 1850, Jane and Benjamin Pitman had their first daughter, Agnes Pitman. The couple had their first son, Arnold, in 1851 and their second son, Ellis, in 1853. While pregnant with her third child, Elis, the Pitman family moved to the United States in January 1853. They moved to the United States due to the influence of Benjamin Pitman's brother, Isaac, who wanted to establish and spread phonographic shorthand before it was popularized. Soon after the move, while transitioning in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jane gave birth to her second son, Ellis. Both Ellis and Arnold died during their brief stay in Pennsylvania. By 1855, the Pitman's settled in Cincinnati, Ohio where her husband established the Cincinnati Phonographic Institute. In Cincinnati, Bragg learned the publication of phonographic and phonetic works, engraving and type setting, and typography. She revised the final proofs of D.S Smalley's "American Phonetic Dictionary of English Language" published in 1855. Bragg was also noted to work with her husband in assisting his court case reports and dictating matter from testimonies. She improved court dictation by using a team of writers to dictate one sentence at a time and combine it together later. Bragg was the official reporter for the New Orleans riot of 1866. Bragg fell ill 1877, and was an invalid for the last year of her life. She died on February 11, 1878 in their residence in Hillside, Ohio at 52 years old. In accordance with her wishes her body was cremated at the recently opened crematorium in Washington, Pennsylvania, the first of its kind. She thus became the first woman to be cremated in the United States.
Wood engravings
Like her daughter, Agnes Pitman, and husband, Benn Pitman, Jane Bragg began wood carving. In 1872, Jane and her daughter, Agnes, carved several pieces of furniture, doors, and other architectural woodwork which was submitted to the Third Annual Cincinnati Industrial Exhibition. In 1876, Pitman carved a chest of drawers embellished with carved floral motifs representing the months of April through September which was shown in the Cincinnati Room of the Women's Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
Wildlife motif
Throughout Bragg's artistic creations, such as her children's book Birds and insects: Dialogues in prose and verse, illustrative of their habits and instinct. In her wood carvings, wildlife is a common motif. Birds were carved into her book along with the mantle over the fireplace in her home. Bragg was known to love gardening and had botanical knowledge of the plants and flowers she cared for.
