The papers of artist and photographer Gladys A. Mattson (1890-1957) of Bantam, Conn., which consist of correspondence, photographs, drawings, stencils, patterns and other documents. Mattson was a daughter of Alfred Mattson and Emma Coe Mattson. By 1912 or so she was tinting photographs. The collection contains three Wallace Nutting prints which contain Mattson's signature on the back. The circumstances under which she worked for Nutting have not been determined, although she would have been about the right age to have colored photographs in his studio in Southbury, Conn. Correspondence in the papers indicates that Mattson also tinted photographs for Charles R. Higgins of Maine. Mattson was a photographer herself, and several of her works appeared in Popular Photography and other publications in the 1910s. The collection also contains a large number of drawings, stencils, and patterns, and it appears that Mattson painted furniture and other objects for area residents.

A preliminary inventory of the papers is available by clicking on "Show Digitial Content Links" at left.

Mattson lived with her parents, brother Clifford, and sister Ruby. After the deaths of their mother in the 1920s and father in 1941, Charles, Gladys, and Ruby continued to live in the family home. None of the children married.