Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a photograph — a daguerrotype, in the year 1840, upon the rooftop of the school which would become New York University.
Catherine was the older sister of professor John William Draper, later the founder of the university’s school of medicine. The Drapers worked alongside Samuel Morse in the period following his invention of the telegraph.
The experiments of Draper and Morse, with Catherine as assistant, would set the stage for the entire history of American photography.
The legendary portrait was taken when Miss Draper was a young woman but a renewed interest in the image in the 1890s brought the now elderly matron a bit of late-in-life recognition.
To see the photograph of Draper and other early photography, visit our website.
This episode originally appeared on Greg’s podcast called The First which had a respectable run a few years ago. The feed for that show will be going away soon so we wanted to present some of that show’s greatest hits over the next few months, in between regular episodes of the Bowery Boys as bonus stories about American history. Enjoy!
#432 The Lenape Nation: Past, Present and Future
Rewind: History of the New York City Subway
#431 Park Avenue: History with a Penthouse View
#430 The Story of Flushing: Queens History, Old and New
#429 The Moores: A Black Family in 1860s New York
The Age of Innocence: Inside Edith Wharton's Classic Novel
#428 The New York Game: Baseball in the Early Years
#427 The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
#426 Behind the Domino Sign: Brooklyn's Bittersweet Empire
#425 It Happened at Madison Square Park
Rewind: Truman Capote and the Black and White Ball
#424 Kosciuszko! The Man. The Bridge. The Legend.
#423 Leonard Bernstein's New York, New York
#422 Grace Church: A Most Fashionable History
Christmas in Old New York: Holiday History
#421 Evacuation Day: Forgotten Holiday of the American Revolution
#420 Garbo Walks: Old Hollywood in New York
The Official Gilded Age Podcast: S2 E1 with Lord Julian Fellowes
Rewind: The Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue
#419 Ghost Stories by Gaslight
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Lore