Draper Menu
The Draper Family
Draper Family Ancestry (from General Draper’s autobiography)
Ebenezer Draper
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General William F. Draper (Two biographies and several newspaper clippings.)
General Draper: Boyhood in the Hopedale Community
Learning a Trade (William Draper’s life from 1858 to 1861)
Going to War (Draper in the fall of 1861)
Letters, 1861 – 1862 (Letters by William Draper written during his first year in the army.)
The Wedding of William Draper and Lilla Joy
Wounded (William Draper’s account of being shot during the Battle of the Wilderness)
Letters from later years (One letter from the general and several written to him)
Waiting for William (A few days from Lilla Draper’s 1873 diary.)
The Wedding of William Draper and Susan Preston
Susan Preston Draper (General Draper’s second wife.)
George Draper Bust Stolen – 1975
Kentucky Spouses (Seven Draper men married women from Kentucky, and two Draper women married men from Kentucky.)
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 a condensed version of Edith’s diary written when she was a student at Miss Porter’s School. At one time the entire diary was online, but that’s no longer available.
Margaret Draper (Princess Boncompagni, aka Madame Boncompagni) Pictures baby — adult
Margaret Draper’s Wedding and articles about her in the news through 1925.
William F. Draper (William the artist, not William, the general.)
Draper obituaries – (Sophie Whitin Draper, Lilla Scharnberg, Grace McMullen, Clare H. Draper III, Joy Roberts.)
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Gov. Eben S. Draper The Ledges (Home of Gov. and Mrs. Draper) Boston Home Burned
Eben S. Draper, Jr. Ruth Draper, stowaway
Bristow and Queena Draper and their children
Helene Draper (Articles on debutante balls, parties and wedding.)
Photos of the Gov. Draper family taken in 1911.
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Frances Eudora (Draper) Colburn
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Draper Family Feud (William F., Eben S. and George A. Draper)
Draper Family Feud (An account of it by Gov. Eben S. Draper.)
The Princess Ends the Feud (Or was it Dorothy Draper Gannett …. or someone else??? You decide.)
Rich and Famous – (Drapers in the news)
Draper family reunion in Hopedale, c. 1999
Draper tombs at Hopedale Villiage Cemetery
The Draper Companies
The Draper business, 1856-1878
Pre-1910 photos of the Draper shops
The Dutcher Family and Business The Frank Dutcher home
The Dutcher Family and Business by Peter Hackett
The History of Spindles (By William F. Draper, on the Harvard U. Library site.)
Draper Plant Expansion, 1856 – 1886 (From Model Company Town.)
The Development of the Northrop Loom, Iincluding the bobbin battery .)
Charles Roper (Draper inventor)
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.
Inventors of Hopedale – Part 1 Part 2
Looms at Work (Pictures of two mills with large numbers of Draper looms at work.)
Now and Then at the Main Office
The Draper plant, 1890 – 1913 See how it grew and changed.
Draper Strike of 1913 Strike articles from Milford Gazette
Strike of 1913 – The Unmaking of an Industrial Utopia
Striking Women: Massachusetts Mill Workers in the Wake of Bread and Roses, 1912-1913.
Eben Draper Bancroft – Vice president and director of Draper Corp at the time of his death in 1925.
Draperville (Grantham Historical Society slide show of the Draper bobbin plants in North Newport and North Grantham, NH in the early twentieth century.)
Beebe River -(Draper bobbin plant in New Hampshire.) More on bobbins – Cotton Cjats, June 1952 Also Cotton Chats, February 1940. Beebe River 40th anniversary booklet Tupper Lake, New York (Another Draper bobbin plant)
Alterations to the plant (Brick facade on Hopedale and Freedom streets, and much more. 1934.)
The Draper apprentice school – (1940 into the 1960s)
Draper Manufactures Howitzers – (World War II)
Aerial views of the plant – 1947 – 1951
Draper 40-year banquet photo – 1948
Workers at machines in the shop
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 Pickard retirement party, 1950 (Many photos of Draper management at that time.)
Workers at their machines and benches
Cotton Chats (Several early issues of the Draper monthly on the website, Digital Treasures.)
Cotton Chats: The Voice of the Draper Company, by Anita Cardillo Danker
Cotton Chats – 1940 1946 1948 1952 1953 1954
Miscellaneous Draper photos from the 1940s and 1950s
Draper phone directory from the 1950s (Over 20 pages of names from that era.)
Cartoons of Draper employees in the 1950s.by Arthur “Red” Pennington.
East Spartanburg plant open house – 1953
Foundry operations – Spartanburg, 1953
Foundry workers strike at Draper Corp., 1953
The 1955 Flood Inside the Draper plant Outside the plant
Draper’s first computer – The UNIVAC, c. 1950s
Roy Rehbein – Working at Draper
The Draper apprentice school
Photos of Draper employees in 1961 report
Draper plant photos that appear to be from the 1960s. Saved by Bob Anderson of Upton when Rockwell people were discarding them. Page 1 (machinery and workers – some from the West Foundry) Page 2 (machinery and workers) Page 3 (machinery and workers) Page 4 (machinery and workers) Page 5 (office workers, executives and meetings) Page 6 (loom assembly) Page 7 (people) Page 8 (shuttle department) Page 9 (salesmen’s book – captioned photos) Page 10 (the rest of the salesmen’s book) Page 11 (more pictures from
inside the shop) Page 12 (building the West Foundry)
Draper Foundries in the Rockwell Era
The 150,000-gallon oil tank (John Cembruch)
Rockwell sale of property, 1976
Mike Cyr (Working in textile mills, including one that used Draper looms.)
George Bushnell (Draper and Country Club memories)
Draper work diary by John Callery (A view of the last years, month by month.)
Rockwell letter to employees, 1978
The End Is Near – Newspaper articles (1978) about the impending closing of the Draper plant in Hopedale.
Draper – Now just a memory (Milford Daily News, March 31, 1980)
It’s All Over (A Milford News article from 1980 about the closing of the Draper plant.)
Water leak – ((Ends manufacturing in rented space at Draper shop in 1988.)
Draper plant in January 2006 More pictures of the same area taken a few months later – July 2006. Five from August 2006. October 15, 2006. October 30, 2006. More taken in February 2007
The Draper plant in 2001 in 2006 and in 2007
Now and Then – The Draper yard from the 1890s to 2013.
$50M Proposal for the Draper plant – 2018
Drone view of the Draper plant before demolition.
Draper demolition – Hopedale Street, south end
The Decline of a Technological Leader: Capability, Strategy, and Shuttleless Weaving, 1945 – 1974. (In this paper, William Mass, writing at the University of Lowell, with funding from the University of Connecticut, 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,)
Draper plant demolition, 2020-2021 – Hopedale Street side, south end Hopedale Street side, Social to Freedom Freedom Street side, western parts Freedom Street side, eastern half Post-demolition site cleanup (2021 – 2022)
Other Draper-Related Pages
Blackstone Valley Baseball League Draper teams, 1935 1948 1951
Field Days Draper Field Days slide show on YouTube.
Summary of Edward Spann’s Hopedale: Commune to Company Town
Short Biographies of Prominent Hopedale People
The “other Drapers” A little about some of the many Drapers in Hopedale who were not related to the “corporation Drapers.”
From Christian Utopia to Company Town: Communal Life and Corporate Paternalism in 19th and 20th Century Hopedale, Massachusetts.
Hopedale and the Drapers, 1888 (The Springfield Daily Union.)
Hopedale and the Drapers (A summary of Hopedale history written in 1909.)
Hopedale and the Drapers, 1910 – (The Boston American)
The Duplexes Bancroft Park photos,( c 1900)
Garages (Car garages for people living in Draper houses.)
The Regulation of Automobiles – Gov. Eben S. Draper
Pres. Taft visits Hopedale, Mendon and Uxbridge with Gov. Draper
Hopedale Manufacturing Company
Donation of land for General Draper High School
The General Draper Library (Milford News article on the dedication of the library at Hopedale High School in 1929.)
White City (Memories of that Draper neighborhood by John Chute.)
White City ( Memories of Hermina Cichanwicz Marcus.)
The publication of Five Generations of Loom Builders, 1950
Site Protection (Preserving the appearance of the town.)
Frederick FitzGerald Killed in Plane Crash – 1960
The Final Chapter by Peter Hackett
Proposal for 1200 condo units at former Draper site.
A Draper loom in the 21st century – Pete and Laurie Eaton’s amazing restoration of a Draper loom.
And another Draper loom restoration story. Michael Masterson and the X-3.
Draper looms weaving denim in North Carolina in 2012
Women’s Committee for Hoover
Shuttles and the Swannanoa Museum
The Little Red Shop in the Draper Era
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. Also, Joseph was an executive with the various Draper companies nearly all of his working life, and president of Draper Company for the last couple of years of his life.
Sylvia Bancroft (An account of her life written by her daughter, Lilla Bancroft Bracken Pratt.)
Almon Thwing (Included here because of Thwing’s relationship to the Draper family and company through three of his sisters.)
Draper plant demolition, 2020-2021 – Hopedale Street side, south end Hopedale Street side, Social to Freedom Freedom Street side, western parts Freedom Street side, eastern half Post-demolition site cleanup (2021 – 2022)
There are also many more Draper family and Draper Corporation articles on the Ezine Menu.
