Jane Bradley Pettit (1918-2001) was a lifelong resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a prominent local philanthropist, donating over $250 million dollars to support the Greater Milwaukee community.
Born Margaret Jane Sullivan to Margaret “Peg” Bradley and Bradley’s first husband, Dwight Sullivan, she became Jane Bradley when Bradley’s second husband, Harry Lynde Bradley, adopted her. She was educated in Milwaukee and at Principia in St. Louis, graduating in 1937. Later she studied drama at Finch College in New York City.
Her first marriage, to Grant Hart Messinger in Dec. 1941, was very brief; they divorced in May 1943. In 1945 she married David Vogel Uihlein Sr., an heir to the Schlitz Brewing Company, with whom she had a daughter, Lynde, and a son, David Vogel Uihlein Jr. After divorcing Uihlein, she married sports broadcaster Lloyd Pettit, and their marriage lasted from 1969 to 1998, when it ended in divorce.
Jane Bradley Pettit became known for her philanthropy in the 1970s, and over the next few decades she made a mark on Milwaukee sports, arts, education, and social services. After Allen-Bradley, the company her father Harry Lynde Bradley co-founded, was sold to Rockwell International in 1985, she started the Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation. To this day, the Foundation provides funds to the Greater Milwaukee community, focusing on programs and projects that serve low-income and disadvantaged individuals, women, children, and the elderly through arts and culture, community and social development, education, and health.
Over the course of her life she donated many millions of dollars to causes in Milwaukee, including to build the BMO Harris Bradley Center, to expand the Milwaukee Art Museum and help it acquire Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, and to build the Lynde and Harry Bradley School of Technology & Trade. She supported the United Way and numerous women’s advocacy groups, along with many other organizations. With Lloyd Pettit, she purchased the Milwaukee Admirals hockey team in 1976, and in 1999 she bought 14 percent of the Milwaukee Brewers. She died in 2001 of lung cancer.
Jane Bradley Pettit's wardrobe below contains garments from designers in the Digital Fashion Archive, including James Galanos and Nettie Rosenstein, and at least one dress purchased at Zita, a Milwaukee boutique owned by her mother, Peg Bradley, and later by Jane herself.
