John William Draper
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John William Draper (1811 - 1882), U.S. (English-born) chemist was a historian & photographer. He served as the first president of American Chemical Society between 1876 and 1877. He was the father of Henry Draper. He was born at St Helens, near Liverpool, on the 5th of May 1811. He studied at Woodhouse Grove, at the University of London, and, after removing to America in 1832, at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1835-1836. In 1837 he was elected professor of chemistry in the University of the City of New York, and was a professor in its school of medicine in 1840 - 1850, president of that school in 1850-1873, and professor of chemistry until 1881. He died at Hastings, New York, on the 4th of January 1882. He made important researches in photochemistry, made portrait photography possible by his improvements (1839) on Daguerres process, and published a Text-book on Chemistry (1846), Text-book on Natural Philosophy (1847), Textbook on Physiology (1866), and Scientific Memoirs (1878) oh radiant energy. He is well known also as the author of The History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (1862), applying the methods of physical science to history, a History of the American Civil War (3 vols., 1867-1870), and a History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874). He was also the first person to take an astrophotograph, having taken a photo of the moon in 1840.