'The First Astrophotographer
John William Draper (1811 - 1882)
“John William Draper is generally recognized as the father of photographic portraiture as well as being the first Astrophotographer."
Ambition
John William Draper knew from a very early age that he wanted to become a scientist; yet he became much more than he could ever have imagined. Not only did he realize his ambition of a career in Science, but he also became one of the great pioneers of the new Art of Photography and the very First Astrophotographer’.
In early 1840 John William Draper obtained a clear Daguerreotype image of the Moon. It was the first time anybody had ever successfully obtained a photograph of any Astronomical object. It was the beginning of Astrophotography and the first evidence that photography could be of great value as a serious tool for scientific study.
To understand how John William Draper, the son of an itinerant English preacher grew up to become an American citizen and one of the ‘Photographic Greats’; we must start as always at the beginning - not in New York State where he spent most of his life but in the town of St. Helens, in the early years of the 19th Century when England’s King was mad, its Regent was little better and a new world across the Atlantic Ocean was beckoning to many.
St. Helens
John William Draper was born on the 5th May 1811 in the then small Lancashire town of St. Helens, ten miles from the port of Liverpool. He was born into a family of Methodists. His father John Christopher Draper was an itinerant Preacher who moved from chapel to chapel in the hope of eking out a living. At the time of John’s birth the family was living in St. Helens, where his father was a preacher at the Methodist Chapel on Tontine Street. He was baptized the following month at the Tontine Street Chapel by his father’s friend, the well known Methodist Preacher Jabez Bunting who conducted the service held there on the 29th of June.
The early education of John Draper was in the main done at his home by private tutors, a result of the family’s meagre income, but at the age of eleven he was sent to a public school at Woodhouse Grove in neighbouring Yorkshire, run by the Wesleyan Methodist Church. At Woodhouse School John Draper was a model pupil; hard working, attentive and inquisitive in all his studies whether it was Mathematics or Classics. In recognition of his efforts he was chosen in 1824 to deliver the customary address from the school to the Wesleyan conference, which met that year at Leeds.
Woodhouse School, Apperley Bridge, Bradford, Yorkshire
This was his first effort at public speaking and he was good at it – something he never forgot and which he was called upon many times to do in his later life. Not long after this event, however, he left the Woodhouse Grove school and returned home, continuing his studies there, as before, under private tutors. It is known that John Draper was interested in Astronomy from an early and was the proud owner of a Gregorian Reflector which he often used to make observations and to find his way around the night sky. He was also passionate about science in general and loved to experiment with chemicals at home whenever he could.
It was therefore not surprising that in 1829, Draper then aged 18 enrolled as a student of Chemistry at the newly founded University College, University of London, under the influential and much respected chemist Dr. Edward Turner. For the next three years he spent in the fruitful study, investigation and analysis of all branches of the subject - inorganic, organic or physical all under Turner’s expert guidance.
Whilst studying for his degree, John Draper took lodgings with a friend of his father, a Mrs Mary Barker in Minster Sheppey in Kent. It was here in 1830 that a met her niece and ward – Miss Antonia Coetana Pereira Gardner; whose father was private physician to Emperor Don Pedro Primeiro of Brazil. The following year they were married on the 13th September 1831 at the Parish church of St. Mary & St. Sexburga (having obtained a marriage license the day before).
During the course of his studies his father died and for whatever reason was unable to finish his course and did not graduate. This was a life changing event for the family who decided following the death of the Reverend John Christopher Draper. It was decided that they would seek a new life in the former British Colony of America.
Before the War of Independence certain of Draper's ancestors on his mother's (Ripley) side had come to America and had settled in Virginia, founding a small Wesleyan colony. Subsequently others of members of the family had crossed the ocean and joined the colony. Urged by these relatives and accompanied by his mother and his three sisters Dorothy, Sarah and Elizabeth; John Draper and his new wife Antonia, all sailed for America in 1832.
Drapersville
By the time of John William Draper’s emigration to his new home in Christianville, Mecklenburg County, Virginia the path of his life had already been paved. He had married the love of his life; he was an excellent public orator; a passionate thinker; a more than capable writer; and a man possessed with considerable knowledge in all things scientific, and especially matters relating to Astronomy and Chemistry.
Why did the whole Draper family feel the need to leave England and take the great leap into the unknown life which awaited them? It may have been the death of John’s father that persuaded them, this would have certainly left them financially worse off, but if this was so why did they leave it until 1832 if John Christopher Draper had died as early as 1829; did John try to complete his studies and the family through lack of money were eventually forced to go?
This is the most likely explanation given the fact that John had been virtually promised a job teaching through the family’s Methodist connections in one of local denominational colleges in Virginia, but he failed to arrive in time and the position had been given to someone else.
So in 1832 the Draper family arrived with no obvious means of support save the help offered to them by their distant relations and the close knit Wesleyan community of Christianville. They need not have worried – John’s mother and his sisters found work teaching in a local school. His sister Dorothy who became the pillar and grand matriarch of the family earned the extra income needed to support John’s studies by painting and drawing.
From the outset John devoted all his energies towards scientific research. Although before leaving England he had published, jointly with a Fellow of the Geological Society, three papers on scientific subjects, his first independent contribution to science was from his makeshift Christianville laboratory. It appeared in the American Journal of Science and Arts for July, 1834, in the form of a letter to the editors, the memoir also appearing in the September issue of the Franklin Institute Journal for the same year under the title:
"Some experimental researches undertaken to determine the nature of capillary action."
Having decided to take the degree of Doctor of Medicine, Draper spent the winters of 1835 and 1886 in Philadelphia attending the medical lectures given at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with his M.D from the University in the March of 1836. His time at Philadelphia had been well spent, the quality of his work and in particular his graduation thesis commended him to many in the scientific community of Virginia and elsewhere.
It was no surprise that he was he was appointed that year as Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at Hampton Sidney College, Prince Edward County, Virginia. In the following year he gained even greater recognition accepting the Professorship of Chemistry at the University of New York. This must have pleased Draper immensely because he was now able to make a career of what had been previously his hobby.
Portraits
In 1837 Draper began his first venture into uncharted world of Photography, a full two years before François Jean Dominique Arago’s announcement of the discovery of the daguerreotype process at the French Academy of Sciences. His experiments with paper coated with silver chloride were aimed at studying the actions of the salt’s vapours when exposed to light; and was similar to the work performed by Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphrey Davy some forty years earlier. Some of the results of Draper’s research were published in the Journal of the Franklin Institute in April and June 1837.
Upon hearing of the work Louis Daguerre's discovery, Draper immediately began experimenting with the so called Daguerreotype process towards the end of 1839. He later wrote the following account of his work:
“When the French government, in 1839, purchased of Daguerre his invention of photogenic drawing, its applications were very limited. The process was adapted to interiors, statuary, and architectural subjects, but wholly unsuited to landscape scenery or to portraits. The inventor himself had made attempts at applying it to the taking of likenesses, but had given it up in despair. After the publication of Daguerre's invention in America a series of experiments was conducted in our laboratory with a view of determining whether the difficulties could be removed.”
In March 31, 1840, Draper wrote a paper which he sent to the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. The magazine published Draper's work in the September 1840 issue. In the article Draper explains his process for photographing portraiture with the daguerreotype process. This was the first report received in Europe regarding a successful example of a photographic portrait, although others have laid claim to being the ‘first’. Draper’s first portrait was that of his sister, Dorothy Catherine Draper, taken with a Daguerreotype camera using a 65 second exposure.
In his paper, Draper stated:
“In the first experiments I made, the face of the sitter was dusted with a white powder, but a few trials showed that this was unnecessary. On a bright day and with a sensitive plate portraits can be obtained in the course of five or seven minutes in the diffused daylight even when an ammonia-sulphate of copper cell is interposed. The hands should never rest upon the chest, for the motion of respiration disturbs them so much as to make them of a thick and clumsy appearance, destroying also the representation of the veins on the back, which, if they are held motionless, are copied with surprising beauty. A person dressed in a black coat and open waistcoat of the same colour must put on a temporary front of a drab or flesh colour, or by the time that his face and the fine shadows of his woollen clothing are evolved his shirt will be solarised and be blue or even black, with a white halo around it. Owing to the circumstance that yellow and yellowish browns require a long time to impress the substance of the daguerreotype persons whose faces are freckled all over give rise to the most ludicrous results — a white portrait mottled with just as many black dots as the sitter has yellow ones”
In his early work he had used a Daguerreotype camera made from a discarded Cigar Box in which he inserted a double convex lens of four inches in diameter and a focal length of fourteen inches. With this arrangement he found that he was able to perfect portrait miniatures in the open air with exposures of between twenty and ninety seconds. On a bright day much larger portraits could be obtained with exposures of from five to seven minutes. He then began experimenting with different lenses of varying size and focal lengths; and discovered for the first time what is known today as a ‘fast’ system; i.e. a lens arrangement which has a low ‘f’ or focal ratio (focal length of lens divided by diameter of the lens). With a low focal ratio Draper found he was able to obtain images with shorter exposure times of similar quality to those obtained with a higher ‘f’ ratio using longer exposure times - he could therefore take ‘faster’ images. By December 1840 he was using a lens with a focal ratio of 1.4. Modern ‘fast’ systems typically have a focal ratio of somewhere between f2 to f5.
John Draper’s photographic portrait shows his sister dressed immaculately in white, sitting down wearing a bonnet on her head, her face framed by flowers, looking directly into the camera operated by her brother. This idyllic scene is one of the most important events in the entire history of photography – it is one of the very earliest family photographs. It is a reminder that images of family members span the history of photography—from Draper’s single daguerreotype to today’s easily duplicated digital snapshots. This portrait also signifies that each of our own family pictures is more than a photograph of a loved one; each one is also a historical document. Our photographs reflect history; they inform us, change our impressions of our relatives, and tell the story of our families.
Daguerreotype of his Sister Dorothy by John William Draper 1840
It will come as a great surprise to learn that the Draper’s first photographic portrait did not remain with the family. Indeed it left their possession with a space of a few weeks after it was taken. John Draper made a gift of the portrait to Sir John Herschel.
In a letter dated the 28th July 1840 he wrote the following:
“Though I have not the honour of your personal acquaintance (Sir John’s) I do not hesitate to send to you a heliographic portrait taken from the life by the daguerreotype — the process I have described in a communication to the London & Edin(burgh). Philosophical Magazine, which is probably published by this time. We have heard in America that owing to the inferior brilliancy of the sun’s rays all attempts of this kind had been unsuccessful both in London & Paris ...”
Why did Draper make such a gift and why did he choose Sir John Herschel?
Firstly Sir John Herschel was one of the most eminent scientists of the day, who like Draper had made contributions in many areas of science: astronomy, botany, meteorology, geography and more importantly photography. Secondly at the time of Draper’s experiments with portrait photography, Sir John Herschel had just made a major discovery which was to transform photography. He had found a way to ‘fix’ photographs using a solution of ‘hypo’ (sodium thiosulphate). Draper probably saw the gift as a way of promoting his own photographic work to a wider scientific community and at the same time to make the acquaintance of one of the great pioneers of photography.
However, the truth is that at this time American scientists were very insecure about their scientific achievements. After all, America was the ‘new kid’ on the block when it came to science. So when an American made a scientific discovery, the evidence would quickly be sent to a leading expert in Europe to get their opinion and to ensure that the American got the credit. Fragile images like this one, accompanied by letters, discussing what they documented or suggested, routinely went back and forth across the ocean, and became the focus of an international and ongoing conversation about optics, chemistry and photography.
The portrait of Dorothy Draper remained in the Herschel family from 1840 until 1939. It was for many years thought to have been the first photographic portrait, although this is now known to be incorrect. This claim is at present held by Robert Cornelius of Philadelphia who took a Daguerreotype image of himself in November 1839.
However in 1934 the photograph was nearly lost forever – not because it had been mislaid but because Dorothy Draper’s image had vanished, caused by the effects of disastrous attempt to clean it. The then owner of the Daguerreotype was the Rev. Sir John Herschel who had sent it to Mr. John H. Gear for cleaning. At that time Gear was the Principal of a ‘School of Pictorial and Technical Photography’ which was close to Madame Tussaud’s in the Marylebone Road, London.
On the 30th April 1934, Gear wrote to the Sir John with some bad news:
“I am worried very much over your daguerreotype. It has not gone right in cleaning off the oxidation. In all the twenty–five years, and more, that I have been cleaning them I have never had one behave in a similar manner. I am always taking every precaution, but in this instance I went through what I would term unnecessary precautions.
“The chemicals which I keep specially for the process were somewhat old, but working quite well. However, I got in new chemicals, but before applying them to your daguerreotype, I kept it back until I had another daguerreotype in to restore. One that came in and was in a very bad condition I used the new chemicals for, and it cleaned and restored perfectly. I was working 25% under the strength to which one can safely go with that one. I then made up the bath afresh and reduced it another 25% in strength for yours, and in addition used distilled water throughout — it is only usual to apply distilled water for the final wash.
The oxidation responded quite normally and cleared, but for some reason that I am unable to suggest, a kind of milky bloom appeared directly I removed it from the solution: not upon the portions of the image, but upon the bare silver portions which reflect the light to give the lighter parts. It completely mortifyed me as I have never had one act previously like it. Nothing more can be done, and greater caution could not possibly be exercised. It made me tremble as I felt so very upset, and my regret is unexpressable …”
The slant given by Gear on the degree to which the image had been damaged was to say the least optimistic. He had implied that the image had not been affected. This was not the case. There was nothing to see but a blank metal plate covered with black silver oxide – oops! One of the most important photographs ever taken had literally disappeared before the Reverend Herschel’s eyes and was now lost forever or was it?
In 1939 the portrait of Dorothy Draper now just a blackened piece of copper plate passed into the hands of the University Of Kansas Museum Of Art; until a solution of Thiourea administered in 1970 by the then curator, James L. Enyeart, miraculously revealed John Draper’s sister and her bonnet to the world once again.
Moonlight
During the winter of 1839-40, John William Draper took a series of daguerreotypes of the moon, focusing the moon’s rays on the plate using a three-inch lens and a six inch mirror. In his earliest attempts, the moon looks rather like an amoeba floating in the primordial ooze. This was partly due to the low light levels and the long exposure time needed for a daguerreotype.
Early Daguerreotype of the Moon by John William Draper 1839
However, he persisted; and on March 23, 1840, Draper was happy to report to a meeting of the New York Lyceum of Natural history, later to become the New York Academy of Sciences, that he had been successful in utilizing a small daguerreotype camera to photograph the Moon’s surface on a one inch diameter plates with a twenty minute exposure.
“A portion of the figure was very distinct,” declared the minutes of the meeting, “but owing to the motion of the Moon, the greater part was confused. The time occupied was twenty minutes, and the size of the figure was about one inch in diameter. Daguerre had attempted the same thing but did not succeed. This is the first time that anything like a distinct representation of the moon’s surface has been obtained."
He later copied these images on to larger ones by the use of an enlarging camera. The photographs clearly showed areas of dark spots and the lunar surface although quite crude.
These daguerreotypes of the moon by Draper are generally considered to be the first successful photographs of any celestial object. Louis Daguerre had made an earlier but unsuccessful attempt to photograph the Moon, as explained by his friend and advocate Arago:
"Never had the rays of the Moon, not necessarily in its natural state but condensed in the mechanism of a great lens or a large reflecting mirror, produced any physical or perceptible effect. The plate prepared by M. Daguerre whitens on the contrary to such a point under the action of these very rays and the operations that follow so that we can hope that we will be able to make photographic
maps of our satellite."
Fortunately for Draper, the disk of the Moon appeared apparently - but without features. Draper later wrote of his own successful experiments:
"By the aid of a lens and heliostat I caused the moon beams to converge on a plate, the lens being three inches (76mm) in diameter. In half an hour a very strong impression was obtained. With another arrangement of lenses I obtained a stain nearly an inch (25mm) in diameter in which the dark spots might be indistinctly traced.”
This marked the beginning of Astrophotography. John William Draper had become the ‘First Astrophotographer’.
Successful Daguerreotype of the Moon by John William Draper 1840
To the uninitiated taking a photograph of the Moon may seem like an easy thing to do. Yes it is for any ‘would be’ Astrophotographer of today. Indeed it is almost always the first thing they attempt to image – the Moon is after all rather bright and big! However they have several big advantages over John William Draper – like access to a modern digital webcam, DSLR or Astronomical CCD camera; a GOTO computerised telescope complete with a motorized electronic drive; not forgetting the sophisticated image processing software to create the perfect Lunar Photograph.
Draper had none of these; all he had was a daguerreotype camera made from an old cigar box, a copper plate coated with a thin film of light sensitive silver iodide which was used to create the image; which was likely to disappear when exposed to the air! If that wasn’t enough the image on the silvered plate had to be developed with Mercury vapour obtained from a heated pool of the deadly metal! If you took too many Daguerreotypes you were likely to die of Mercury poisoning!
So the next time you are out imaging the Moon and things are not going well and your camera is ‘playing up’ – take a moment to think how lucky you are – at least your night of frustration won’t be the death of you!
Professor
From 1837 John William Draper held the position of Professor of Chemistry at New York University, and in the years that followed until his death in 1882 he would forever be associated (as would his sons)with the city of New York and its University.
In 1847 the Draper family moved from Prince Edward County to a new home on 20 acres of land in what was then the Town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York State, but which later became known as Hastings-on-Hudson.
The 1850 Census shows the family living together on the Draper Estate – John William Draper, his wife Antonia, their six children (John Christopher age 15, Henry age 13, Virginia age 11, William age 9, Daniel age 7 and Antonia age 2), and his sisters Dorothy and Elizabeth; together with their three servants – immigrants from Ireland who had fled to America away from the potato famine which had devastated their country from 1845 onwards.
The time spent at Hastings-on-Hudson was professionally a great success for John William Draper. His career flourished and his name began to spread outside of academic circles. During the years which followed his experiments in Photography he carried out research in many areas of science, from work on the Electric Telegraph, to the study of Phosphorescence, to Solar Physics.
John Draper’s House, Hastings-on-Hudson, c1925
The only area which related to Astrophotography was his work on Spectroscopy – the study of the spectral lines of chemical elements. Although much of this work was carried out whilst he was living in Hastings-on-Hudson, the earlier work had been done when he was living elsewhere in New York State.
From 1840 onwards, Draper began conducting research on the spectrum of the Sun. He carried out his experiments in a room that was completely darkened, except for a narrow stream of sunlight that came through a small cut he had made in a window shade. The beam of light was directed through a prism and into Draper’s camera. What registered on his daguerreotype plates were images of light broken up into a continuous colour spectrum.
Draper is credited with having taken the earliest photographic representations of light, itself. What’s particularly interesting is that Draper’s daguerreotype plates were chemically sensitized in such a way that not only did they register visible light, but ultraviolet light; too, something the human eye can’t normally see.
Draper wrote to Sir John Herschel on the 26th September 1842, two years after he had sent him the portrait of his sister Dorothy:
“... I am induced to send you, because it will certainly interest you, a daguerreotype impression of the spectrum which I recently made in Lat. 37° 10´ N on the yellow iodide of silver (Daguerre’s preparation). I have tried in vain to procure one like it in New York, though there is no difficulty in getting them in Virginia ... [etc.].”
This daguerreotype was sent, as was the earlier portrait, through the offices of the Philosophical Magazine, and articles were published both by Draper and Herschel about the spectrum daguerreotype in that journal.
After this daguerreotype was made—and throughout the remainder of nineteenth century—light, and particularly the spectrum remained an object of scientific fascination. Physicists were obsessed with the mysteries of spectra, which they believed to hold the “master keys of science.” They wondered about the physical nature of light, if it was a wave or made of particles, whether it had weight or might exert pressure.
Draper’s image, a humble one, eventually led to later, more complex photographic images of the light spectrum, such as the large and incredibly detailed paper prints, made with diffraction gratings and spectroscopes, that were mass produced and sold for use in classrooms and laboratories around the world. The goal of all of these explorations of light was to better understand elements of the physical world. What Draper did, early on, was to use photography to ask a basic question: what can we know with what we already have? He began by making daguerreotype plates like this one, exposing them to the sun under different conditions, and using his scientific understanding of light to make sense out of the photographic images he created.
Misfortune
The early years of the Drapers’ life at Greenburgh passed off without great incident. It was not to last however.
In 1850 John Draper became President of the Medical School at New York University having been its secretary for a number of years previously. This was an extra burden to his non inconsiderable existing responsibilities. However as usual Draper took up the challenge and in the words of his biographer George Barker “and by his active measures and wise counsels, inaugurated a period of unexampled prosperity for it (the Medical School).”
From 1853 onwards John Draper, his family and the American nation were to suffer a period of great misfortune. It began with the death of John Draper’s son William on the 21st September of that year; he was just 7 years old. If this was not enough, he then lost almost the entire edition of his scientific memoirs and essays up to 1844, together with the illustrative plates, destroyed in a fire at the publishing house of Harper & Brothers.
In 1860, Professor John William Draper, his wife Antonia and their son Henry travelled to England for a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science to be held at Oxford that June. It was just as well that John Draper did not know what his trip would bring when he applied for his passport on the 4th May 1860.
His trip was to be the catalyst for one of the most heated and contentious scientific discussions of all time - the so called ‘Oxford Evolution Debate’ that took place at the Oxford University Museum on the 30th June 1860 - some seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated, including Thomas Henry Huxley, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Benjamin Brodie, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Robert FitzRoy.
The debate is best remembered today for a heated exchange in which Wilberforce supposedly asked Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey. Huxley is said to have replied that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth.
One eyewitness suggests that Wilberforce's question to Huxley may have been "whether, in the vast shaky state of the law of development, as laid down by Darwin, anyone can be so enamoured of this so-called law, or hypothesis, as to go into jubilation for his great great grandfather having been an ape or a gorilla?", whereas another suggests he may said that "it was of little consequence to himself whether or not his grandfather might be called a monkey or not”.
The encounter is often known as the Huxley-Wilberforce debate or the Wilberforce-Huxley debate, although this description is somewhat misleading. Rather than being a "formal debate" between the two, it was actually an animated discussion that occurred after the presentation of a paper read by the unfortunate Professor John William Draper, on the intellectual development of Europe with relation to Darwin's theory (one of a number of scientific papers presented during the week as part of the British Association's annual meeting). However, although they were not the only participants in the discussion, they were reported to be the two dominant parties.
No verbatim account of the debate exists, and there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding what Huxley and Wilberforce actually said. Whatever was said the Draper family were no doubt very glad to disembark from their Steamer the SS Asia when it docked at New York on the 14th September 1860.
On their return the American Civil War broke out the following year on the 12th April 1861 and lasted until the 9th April 1865. The conflict greatly affected John William Draper; the experiences of his son Henry Draper who was a battlefield surgeon in the Union Army and of his many friends could not fail to move him, so much so that he produced what was for many years the definitive account of this bitter conflict.
In the preface to the history he wrote:
“Now when we appreciate how much the actions of men are controlled by the deeds of their predecessors, and are determined by climate and other natural circumstances, our animosities lose much of their asperity, and the return of kind feelings is hastened.
While the tempest of war is raging, such ideas can not secure attention ; but when peace succeeds, the voice of philosophy is heard calming our passions, suggesting new views of the things about which we contended, whispering excuses for our antagonist, and persuading us that there is nothing we shall ever regret in fraternal forgiveness for the injuries we have received.”
The history was published in the years between 1807 and 1870 in three volumes. He had been urged to write it “this work by the earnest request of persons who had been chief actors in the events described and who rendered him effective aid.”
Indeed Edwin McMasters Stanton, the then Secretary of War, went so far as issued orders to the adjutant general of the army of the United States to " furnish him (Draper) copies of all orders, reports, correspondence, telegraphic dispatches, or other documents on file in the War Department as he might request, and to permit him to inspect and have copies of any maps, plans, and other papers necessary for the preparation of his work, and to furnish him with statistical information respecting the armies of the United States, their organization and operations."
This order included also all the Confederate archives in possession of the War department. Nor was the interest of the Secretary of War limited to this. He supplied a large amount of personal information of the utmost value. Access was not infrequently given the author to documents and correspondence of the most confidential kind, with a view of guiding him to correct conclusions; and many of the most decisive military operations are detailed from private memoranda furnished by the commanding officers themselves.
Further misfortune struck Draper when another fire in 1865, destroyed the College Buildings of New York University Medical Centre on 14th Street. Not only was his department burnt to the ground, but Draper also lost his extensive library, his lecture notes, and the note-books which contained the results of his experimental investigations; as was his entire collection of the chemical, physical, and physiological apparatus, that he used to illustrate his lectures and more importantly which he used in his researches. All destroyed - a loss which Draper estimated to be some $15,000, but of inestimable value to him personally.
The ultimate misfortune was to strike John Draper, when on the 31st July 1870, his beloved wife Antonia died. For a number of years his wife had been very ill, an invalid imprisoned in her own home, unable to look after her children and her husband, so it must have been something of a relief to her family that her suffering was at end –admittedly little consolation for those loved ones left behind.
Hastings-on-Hudson
The days, months and years following Antonia Draper’s death were ones in which John Draper became ever more engrossed in his work. He had begun by publishing the final volume of his trilogy on the History of the American Civil War in 1870. This was followed in December 1874, by his epic work on the “History of the Conflict between Religion and Science”. He became even busier in 1876 when he was elected President of the American Chemical Society.
In his address delivered to the Society on the 16th November of that year entitled “Science in America”, he showed that he had forgotten nothing of his early years in St. Helens when he spoke of objects he had seen as a young boy through a telescope all those years ago; and of the new science of spectroscopy of which he himself has played his part:
“And now, while we have accomplished only a most imperfect examination of objects that we find on the earth, see how, on a sudden, through the vista that has been opened by the spectroscope, what a prospect lies beyond us in the heavens. I often look at the bright yellow ray emitted from the chromosphere of the sun, by that unknown element, Helium, as the Astronomer’s have ventured to call it. It seems trembling with excitement to tell its story, and how many unseen companions it has.
And if this be the case with the Sun, what shall we say of the magnificent hosts of the stars? May not every one of them have special elements of its own if not each a chemical laboratory in itself? Look at the clusters in the sword-handle of Perseus; in Cassiopeia, a universe of stars on a ground of star dust ; in Hercules, of which, as astronomers say, no one can look at for the first time through a great telescope without a shout of wonder — the most superb spectacle that the eye of man can witness!
Look at the double stars, of which so many are now known, emitting their contrasting rays, garnet, or ruby, or emerald, or sapphire? Each is in accordance with its own special physical conditions, though all are under the same universal ordinance”
Draper continued to work industriously right until his death. Although he had been ill for most of the second half of 1881, he only recently was confined to bed at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson when his death came on the morning of the 4th January 1882. He had been suffering from severe rheumatism and kidney disease. A glowing obituary of him appeared the following day in the New York Times. It was fitting that the last paragraph of which should mention portrait photography a field in which John Draper had been its founder – a fact acknowledged by the writer of the obituary:
“Dr. Draper was under medium the height, broad and strong. He was never a great talker, but was disposed to listen to others. His face was not expressive, and a photographer once said to him – ‘I like to have you to sit for a picture, Doctor, you are such a solid little man.’”
After John Draper’s death the house at Hastings-on-Hudson was left to his sister Dorothy, who continued to live there until her death on the 10th December 1901, she had reached the grand old age of 94 and had outlived her brother, her two sisters and all but two of her grandchildren. No better person deserved to be left the Draper Estate. She had earned money from several jobs to help pay for her brother’s education; she had been his assistant in many of his experiments; she had cared for his wife Antonia throughout her illness right up until her merciful death; and had been in charge of running the house for much of the time.
Exercise Book
The house eventually passed out of the Draper family’s hands following the death of Antonia Draper Dixon; the last surviving child of John and Antonia Draper on the 3rd September 1923. Subsequently, the house was left in her will to the American Scenic and Preservation Society to act as trustees providing it is kept as a “historical or high art museum, reading room or library”. The property suffered a chequered history until after many legal wrangles it fell under the trusteeship of the Village of Hastings in 1990.
I am now happy to report that the terms of Antonia Draper Dixon’s will have been entirely met and the house, its grounds along with Henry Draper’s Observatory are a working museum now run by the Hastings Historical society, who have let the property on a long term lease from the Village of Hastings.
John William Draper was one of the greatest thinkers of his day, yet he is today largely forgotten and unheard of by all but a few researchers and academics. As such he is recognized as the ‘father’ of portrait photography and the first person to obtain a successful image of an astronomical body – our Moon. During the course of his life he also made many other important contributions to the advancement of science in general; the electric telegraph, spectroscopy, the relationship between heat and light and the phenomenon of phosphorescence. He was also a philosopher who cared deeply about the relationship between Science, Religion and Society, a subject he wrote and spoke about at every available opportunity.
It is also curious to note that Draper was a ‘dabbler’, a term not used in a critical way, but meant to describe his attitude to science. Despite his many and varied contributions to all branches of science he was never truly a specialist – someone who chose a particular area of a specific discipline and concentrated all his efforts on it. He was not a William Huggins – a pioneer of astronomical spectroscopy or Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen – a Solar Physicist; or Isaac Roberts - an Astrophotographer. He treated Science like it was an experiment like the ones he conducted in his student days at the University of London- a project which had to be completed; when done he would then move onto the next one. This trait was one Draper was to show throughout his life.
He conducted pioneering work in the then new ‘art’ of Photography and took the one of earliest photographic portrait of a person in 1840; then he stopped and moved on. In the same year he took the first photograph of the Moon and then did no more. He did not carry on his work in Astrophotography in anyway whatsoever. Why didn’t he try to improve the quality of his images or produce more detailed smaller scale photographs of the craters and seas on the Moon’s surface as many would have done? He did not attempt to take a focussed image of a star, a planet or a nebula. This was left to the other pioneers of astrophotography who followed him and in particular his son Henry Draper. He had completed his ‘experiment’; and it had worked; so he had finished what he had set out to do; and so he turned attention to the next project in his ‘exercise book’.
We are now looking at his ‘exercise book’ over a century after John William Draper closed it for the last time; and seeing what he did well and what he got right. Much of what he did is now seen as naive and wrong, but that is the way of science – the mistakes of others help someone else to the truth.
However no matter what history writes about his life; John William Draper was and always will be the ‘First Astrophotographer’.
John William Draper’s House at Hasting-on-Hudson, New York
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