Mary Anna Palmer Draper (September 19, 1839–December 8, 1914), who went by Anna, was an astronomer at her private observatory and, starting in 1886, a key benefactor for the discovery of stellar spectra and for the Women Astronomical Computers at the Harvard College Observatory.
Draper became interested in astronomy and astronomical photography through her husband, Henry Draper, who was a doctor and amateur astronomical photographer who made important contributions to the field of stellar photography.1 Henry had developed a small private observatory on his family’s property in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and Anna quickly became a talented assistant and collaborator in his work.2 In 1869, Anna and Henry decided to build a new, upgraded observatory on the property with a rotating dome and more powerful telescope,3 for which they did the grinding and polishing of the telescope mirror themselves.4 In the warmer months, the couple used their observatory to photograph the spectra of stars, with Henry operating the telescope and Anna recording logbooks and preparing the photographic coatings on the glass plates.5 In the winter, Draper and her husband hosted gatherings of prominent scientists in their home in New York City, including one memorable party in November 1882 for which they lit the dinner table with incandescent bulbs newly invented by their dinner guest Thomas Edison.6 In 1878, the Drapers led a group of fellow scientists, including Edison, on an elaborately designed expedition to Wyoming to observe, photograph, and gather data from a solar eclipse.7 Henry’s unexpected death in 1882 prompted Draper to collaborate with Edward Pickering and the Harvard College Observatory to continue her and her husband’s scientific mission.8
Palmer Draper established the Henry Draper Memorial fund at the HCO in 1886 in memory of her late husband, and the initial Draper Memorial work focused on cataloging stars and stellar spectra. The first iteration of the catalog, The Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, was published in 1890 and characterized 10,000 stars.9 Since then, the catalog has expanded through many iterations, including the Henry Draper Catalogue published iteratively between 1918-1924 with classifications for over 225,000 stars, and the Henry Draper Extension published iteratively between 1925-1936 that brought the total classifications to over 270,000 stars.10 The Draper work enabled many important astronomical discoveries, including seminal insights into the origins of stars, their distribution and clustering patterns, and their physical characteristics.11 In 1991, Dorrit Hoffleit, a prominent astronomer who trained at the HCO, said that “there is hardly any branch of astronomy that has not benefited from the results of the Henry Draper Memorial. Without Mrs. Draper’s vision and generosity, one wonders how preeminent Harvard would have become”.12 The Draper memorial fund continues to provide financial support to Harvard’s Astronomical Glass Plate Collection to this day.
The Henry Draper Memorial and Draper catalog also played a central role in building and supporting HCO’s corps of Women Astronomical Computers. In 1893, a reporter commented that “indeed, the whole Draper memorial work is in every way a great credit to women.”13 In addition to being funded by a woman, the cataloging work employed many of the women astronomical computers, and prominent astronomers Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury (Henry Draper’s niece), and Annie Jump Cannon invested major portions of their careers into it.14 Anna Palmer Draper herself was heavily involved in monitoring the progress of the Draper Memorial project, and she often visited and corresponded with Edward Pickering, then-director of the HCO, Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, and others of the women astronomical photographers.15 Due to her technical background, she paid close attention to the scientific details of the discoveries being made through the project, and she attended HCO committee meetings and events, including the 1928 eclipse expedition to North Carolina.16 She also built close personal friendships with Pickering, his wife Lizzie Sparks Pickering, Fleming, Cannon, and others.17
Draper was born on September 19, 1839 in Stonington, Connecticut to mother Mary Ann Suydam Palmer and father Courtlandt Palmer, who was a wealthy businessman.18 Her great-grandfather, Amos Palmer, was a sea captain and led troops in the Battle of Stonington during the War of 1812, and her grandfather, also named Courtlandt Palmer, was a prominent merchant.19 Draper married her husband Henry Draper in Manhattan on November 11, 1867.20 In addition to her scientific pursuits, she built a collection of art and archaeological artifacts, including miniatures, rare engraved gems, Greek glass, ancient coins, amulets, rosaries, jewelry, and neoclassical furniture.21 She died in New York City on December 8, 1914, at the age of 75.22
Archival Resources:
The archival collections of Anna Palmer Draper, her husband, Henry Draper, and her father in law, John William Draper (1811-1882), exist across numerous institutions and archives.
Harvard University Holdings:
The Harvard Plate Stacks holds a small collection of Henry Draper's early spectra photography as well as the painted portrait Anna Palmer Draper.
New York Public Library:
The NPLY's Manuscripts and Archives Division was gifted two deposits of archival and photographic material from Anna Palmer Draper in 1909 and 1915. The Henry and Mary Anna Palmer Draper papers, collection holds 1.5 linear feet (8 boxes, 2 folders)of correspondence and scrap books of Anna Palmer Draper but includes some photographs made by Draper.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History:
Antonia Maury worked to keep the Drapers' estates and the Draper Observatory in Hastings, New York as a museum with the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society being the organization responsible for it. However this never came into full fruition and the estates were entangled in prolonged litigation.
In 1972, descendants John William Christopher Draper and James Christopher Draper donated an archival collection spanning 4.3 cubic feet (13 boxes). The Draper Family Collection at NMAH contains records from the Draper family from 1826-1936 including John William Draper, Henry Draper, Anna Palmer Draper, and Dorthy Catherine Draper Nye.
New York University Archives:
In 1984 a collection 2 linear feet (5 boxes) was donated to the Archives at NYU. These Draper Family Papers MC.11, have materials dating from 1836-1985. NYU also holds the 1840 John William Draper daguerreotype of the Moon, (MC298, object 192).
Citations:
1-Dorrit Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” Vistas in Astronomy vol. 34 (1991), 110.↩2- Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” 108.↩
3- Susan Ball, “Pioneer Family With Eye on the Stars,” The New York Times, November 5th, 1995; Hastings Historical Society, “Draper Observatory Cottage” https://hastingshistoricalsociety.org/draper-observatory-cottage/. Retrieved January 9, 2023.↩
4- Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” 108.↩
5- Annie J. Cannon, “The Henry Draper Memorial,” Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, vol. 9: 203. Bibcode: 1915JRASC…9..203C; Ball, “Pioneer Family With Eye on the Stars.”↩
6- Cannon, “The Henry Draper Memorial," 205.↩
7- “The Eclipse,” New York Daily Herald, July 30, 1878, p. 3; “Watching the Eclipse,” The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania), July 16, 1878, p. 1.↩
8- Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” 110.↩
9- Cannon, “The Henry Draper Memorial."↩
10- Cannon, “The Henry Draper Memorial."↩
11- Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” 159.↩
12- Hoffleit, “The Evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial,” 159.↩
13- “Women Astronomers: The Draper Memorial Work. Mrs. Mina Fleming and Her New Star,” The Buffalo News, November 21, 1893.↩
14- “Women Astronomers: The Draper Memorial Work”; Cannon, “The Henry Draper Memorial."↩
15- Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took Measure of the Stars (New York: Viking, 2016).↩
16- Sobel, The Glass Universe.↩
17- Sobel, The Glass Universe.↩
18- “Mrs. Anna P. Draper Dies,” The New York Times, December 9, 1914.↩
19- “Mrs. Anna P. Draper Dies,” The New York Times.↩
20- Washington Square Church, Members, Baptisms, Marriages, 1828-1880. U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989. The Archives of the Reformed Church in America, New Brunswick, New Jersey.↩
21- Estate auction notice in The New York Times, March 26, 1915; estate auction notice in The Sun (New York City), April 10, 1917.↩
22- “Mrs. Anna P. Draper Dies,” The New York Times.↩
