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!
Rewind: The Historic New York City Hall
#365 Do The Right Thing (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#364 The Very Gay History of Fire Island
#363 The Sunny Saga of Jones Beach
#362 Gatsby and the Mansions of the Gold Coast
#361 Landmarks of Coney Island (Extended Funhouse Mix)
#360 The Botanical Gardens of New York City
#359 The Magic of the Movie Theater
#358 The Muppets Take Manhattan (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#357 Edith Wharton's New York
#356 Pfizer: A Brooklyn Origin Story
#355 The Midnight Adventures of Doctor Parkhurst
#354 Who Wrote the First American Cookbook?
#353 Harlem Before the Renaissance
Rewind: Harlem Nights at the Hotel Theresa
#352 The Birth of Black Harlem
#351 Auntie Mame (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#350 The World Trade Center in the 1970s
Rewind: Strange Hoaxes of the 19th Century
#349 The Queensboro Bridge and the Rise of a Borough
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