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!
#186 Hell's Kitchen: New York's Wild West
#185 Adventures on Governors Island
#184 The Flatiron Building: A Story from Three Sides
#183 Orchard Street: Life in the Lower East Side
#182 Mae West: "Sex" on Broadway
#181 Park Slope and the Story of Brownstone Brooklyn
#180 The Chelsea Piers and the Age of the Ocean Liner
#179 The Fight for Bryant Park
#178: The Crystal Palace: America's First World's Fair
#177 The Big History of Little Italy
#176 Billie Holiday's New York
#175 Bowery Boys 2014 Year In Review
#174 American Kicks: A History of the Rockettes
#173 Ruins of the World's Fair: New York State Pavilion
#172 Ghost Stories of Brooklyn
#171 The Keys to Gramercy Park
#170 The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino
#169 The Tallest Building In New York: A Short History
#168 DUEL! Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton
#167 Cleopatra's Needle and the Freemasons Secret
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