Mary Anna Draper

Mary Anna Draper (September 19, 1839 – December 8, 1914^[1])(née Palmer) was an American astronomer known for her work with astronomical photography.^[2]

Early life

Mary Anna Palmer was born in 1839, in Stonington, Connecticut, to Mary Ann and Courtlandt Palmer. Her father was a merchant and real estate investor. At his death in 1874, he left her and her three brothers a large fortune. In 1867, she married physician and professor of chemistry and physiology Henry Draper.^[2]

Career

Henry Draper, an amateur astronomer, began his wife's interest in astronomy and the two came to collaborate. The Drapers took the first photographs of the spectrum of a star using a large telescope Henry built at his observatory near their summer home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. The couple traveled Rawlins, Wyoming to observe a solar eclipse in 1878. During winters, the couple worked in the laboratory connected to their New York City home. For fifteen years the Drapers worked together on observations, photography, and laboratory work.^[2]

Draper gave up her astronomical research after the death of her husband in 1882. She donated her equipment to the Harvard College Observatory, and endowed the Henry Draper Memorial to fund the continuation of her research. Although she no longer actively researched, she visited the observatory regularly to learn about the progress of the research. She also created an award for astronomical research, the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, and helped to found the Mount Wilson Observatory.^[3] She began hosting scientific lectures and exhibitions at her home laboratory, and continued until her death of pneumonia in 1914.^[2]

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