Draper Menu

Short Biographies of Prominent Hopedale People

Draper Family Ancestry    (from General Draper's autobiography)

Ebenezer Draper

George Draper

General William F. Draper   (A five page biography of Draper)

General Draper: Boyhood in the Hopedale Community

Learning a Trade (William Draper's life from 1858 to 1861)

The Wedding of William Draper and Lilla Joy

Wounded (William Draper's account of being shot during the Battle of the Wilderness)

Letters, 1861 - 1862 (Letters by William Draper written during his first year in the army.)

Letters from later years    (One letter from the general and several written to him)

The General Draper Statue

The Missing Statue  

George Otis Draper

Edith Draper Blair   (Daughter of General William and Lilla Draper; married Montgomery Blair, Jr.-  family of the original owners of Blair House in Washington, D.C. The link goes to Edith's diary written when she was a student at Miss Porter's School.)

Margaret Draper   (Princess Boncompagni)  Pictures  baby --  adult

The General Draper Library   (Milford News article on the dedication of the library at Hopedale High School in 1929.)

William F. Draper    (William, the artist, not to be confused with his grandfather, William, the general. Extensive interview done by the Smithsonian in 1977)

Gov. Eben S. Draper      The Ledges (Home of Gov. and Mrs. Draper)

Eben S. Draper, Jr

George Albert Draper

Draper Family Feud (William F., Eben S. and George A. Draper)

The Princess Ends the Feud (Or was it Dorothy Draper Gannett .... or someone else???  You decide.)

Bristow and Queenie Draper (A newspaper article from 1909 about B and Q)

Rich and Famous - (Drapers in the news)

Kentucky Women (Six Draper men married women from Kentucky.)

Wickliffe Draper

Fanny Osgood ( A granddaughter of George and Hannah Draper, Fanny found fame as a golfer.)

Sylvia Bancroft (An account of her life written by her daughter, Lilla Bancroft Bracken Pratt.)

Joseph Bancroft (Lilla Bancroft Bracken Pratt's story of her father's life. The Bancrofts have been included here because, in addition to Joseph's position with the Draper Company, the Drapers and the Bancrofts were related. Sylvia's sister Anna was married to Ebenezer Draper, and her sister Hannah was married to George Draper.)

Almon Thwing (Included here because of Thwing's relationship to the Draper family and company through three of his sisters.)

The Dutcher Family and Business

Four Early Shops

Draper Products   (Although best known for their automatic loom, the company also manufactured many other products. This article tells what they were doing in 1896.)

The Draper plant, 1890 - 1913   See how it grew and changed.

The Development of the Northrop Loom  

Looms at Work   (Pictures of two mills with large numbers of Draper looms at work.)

Now and Then at the Main Office  

Inventors of Hopedale

The History of Spindles (By William F. Draper, on the Harvard U. Library site.)

Hopedale and the Drapers   (A summary of Hopedale history written in 1909.)

Charles Roper (Draper inventor)

The Duplexes

White City   (Memories of that Draper neighborhood by John Chute.)

Site Protection (Preserving the appearance of the town.)

Drapers Will Hire Women

Draper Strike of  1913

Donation of land for General Draper High School  

Draper Manufactures Howitzers - (World War II)  

Draper shop organization chart, c. 1950 (Lots of familiar names for those of you who remember the company at that time.)

The Draper foundry in 1950   (a Cotton Chats article)

More on the foundry, c. 1950 

Harry Picard retirement party, 1950 (Many photos of Draper managment at that time.)

The Larches  

Claude Snider

The 1955 Flood   (Twelve photos of Drapers during the flood.)

Roy Rehbein - Working at Draper 

Frederick FitzGerald Killed in Plane Crash - 1960  

The 150,000-gallon oil tank (John Cembruch)

Strike, 1976

The End Is Near (Two Milford News articles on the announcement of the closing of Drapers.)

It's All Over (A Milford News article from 1980 about the closing of the Draper plant.)

The Decline of a Technological Leader: Capability, Strategy, and Shuttleless Weaving, 1945 - 1974.   (An often-told story is that Rockwell acquired Drapers with the intent of closing it, because there was a tax advantage to doing so.  In this paper, William Mass, writing at the University of Lowell, with funding from the University of Connecticul, takes a close look at decisions made during the final years of Drapers.)

Developing and Utilizing Technological Leadership, Industrial Research, Vertical Integration, and Business Strategy at the Draper Company, 1816 - 1930 (Another paper by  William Mass,)

The Hopedale Machine Company  

Cotton Chats   (Several early issues of the Draper monthly on the website, Digital Treasures.)

Field Days

Draper Field

Mill Village or Shop Town?  

Mike Cyr   (Working in textile mills, including one that used Draper looms.)

Sophie Carter Whitin Draper   (2006 obituary)

The Uxbridge Connection

A View from the South  

A View from the  Southeast  

Aerial Views, 1964  

George Draper Bust Stolen - 1975 

A Draper loom in the 21st century - Pete and Laurie Eaton's amazing restoration of a Draper loom.

Little Red Shop Menu  

Little Red Shop Interior Menu

Little Red Shop Renovation Project, 2007

                                                                   
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