John Brashear
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
and instrument builder.
Life and work
Brashear was born in Brownsville, PennsylvaniaBrownsville, Pennsylvania
Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, officially founded in 1785 located 35 miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River...
, a town 35 miles (56 km) south of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
along the Monongahela River
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
. His father, Basil Brown Brashear, was a saddler, and his mother, Julia Smith Brashear, was a school teacher. He was the oldest of seven children. As a boy, John Brashear was heavily influenced by his maternal grandfather, Nathanial Smith, a clock repairer. When he was nine, his grandfather took him to view through the telescope of 'Squire' Joseph P. Wampler, who set up his traveling telescope in Brownsville. That influential view of the moon and the planet Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
stayed with Brashear for the rest of his life. After receiving a common school education until age 15, he became an apprentice to a machinist and had mastered his trade at age 20.
Beginning in 1861 Brashear worked as a millwright
Millwright
A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...
in a rolling steel mill in Pittsburgh. He pursued his love for astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
at night, with the help of his wife Phoebe Stewart, a Sunday school teacher whom Brashear met in 1861 and married in 1862. Of too little means to purchase a telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
, Brashear built his own workshop from a three-meter-square coal shed behind his house and proceeded to build his own refractor.
Silvering
Silvering is the chemical process of coating glass with a reflective substance. When glass mirrors first gained widespread usage in Europe during the 16th century, most were made of an amalgam of tin and mercury, but by the 19th century mirrors were commonly made through a process by which silver...
method, which would become the standard for coating first surface mirrors (known as the "Brashear Process") until vacuum metalizing began replacing it in 1932.
Brashear patented few instruments and never patented his techniques. He founded "John A. Brashear Co." with his son-in-law and partner, James Brown McDowell (now a division of L-3 Communications
L-3 Communications
L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. is a company that supplies command and control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and products, avionics, ocean products, training devices and services, instrumentation, space, and navigation products. Its customers include...
, and still based in Pittsburgh). His instruments gained worldwide respect. Optical elements and instruments of precision produced by John Brashear were purchased for their quality by almost every important observatory in the world. Some are still in use today.
In 1892 Brashear made his second of three trips to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, this time providing a lecture tour. In 1898 he became director of the Allegheny Observatory
Allegheny Observatory
The Allegheny Observatory is an American astronomical research institution, a part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. The facility is listed on the National Register of Historical Places The Allegheny Observatory is an American astronomical research...
in Pittsburgh, continuing in this post until 1900.
From 1901 to 1904, he was acting chancellor
Chancellor
Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...
of the Western University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
, now known as the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
, after serving as a member of the board of trustees since 1896. Brashear also was a trustee of the Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Institute of Technology
The Carnegie Institute of Technology , is the name for Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering. It was first called the Carnegie Technical Schools, or Carnegie Tech, when it was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie who intended to build a “first class technical school” in Pittsburgh,...
and served as President of the Academy of Science and Art.
John and Phoebe Brashear were active in their church as well. He served as the choir director of Bingham Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and organized the Cantata Society, composed of church choirs from Pittsburgh's South Side. During the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915), in which a 20" Warner-Swasey telescope with Brashear optics was displayed, Brashear was named "the State's most distinguished man" by Pennsylvania's Governor Martin Grove Brumbaugh
Martin Grove Brumbaugh
Martin Grove Brumbaugh, A.M., Ph.D. was Pennsylvania's 26th Governor, a Republican. He is frequently referred to as M.G. Brumbaugh, as is common in the Brumbaugh family.-Biography:...
. The telescope is still in use today at Chabot Space and Science Center at Oakland, California.
In 1919, he suffered ptomaine poisoning (an outdated term for food poisoning), which induced a debilitating illness lasting six months. He died at age 79 at his South Side home. His body was held in state in the Great Hall of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.
His ashes are interred in a crypt below the Keeler Telescope at Allegheny Observatory, along with those of his wife. A plaque on the crypt reads: "We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.", a paraphrase of the last line of the poem "The Old Astronomer to His Pupil" by Sarah Williams
Sarah Williams
Sarah Williams was an English poet, most famous as the author of "The Old Astronomer", also known as "The Old Astronomer to His Pupil".A segment of her poem is used in the introduction to Ian Rankin's novel Set in Darkness.-Sources:...
. He was survived by a daughter and several siblings.
Honors
- He was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1910.
- The Brashear Association was founded in 1916 in his memory.
Named for him:
- The crater BrashearBrashear (lunar crater)Brashear is a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon, in the southern hemisphere in the vicinity of the south pole. It lies just to the south of the walled plain Antoniadi, within the larger crater's outer rampart of ejecta...
on the MoonMoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more... - The crater Brashear on MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
- AsteroidAsteroidAsteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
5502 Brashear5502 Brashear5502 Brashear is a main-belt asteroid discovered on March 1, 1984 by Bowell, E. at Flagstaff.-External links:*... - Brashear High SchoolBrashear High SchoolBrashear High School is a public school in the Beechview neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Brashear is one of ten high schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.-Academic achievement:...
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1976)
See also
- List of astronomical instrument makers
- Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CaliforniaOakland, CaliforniaOakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
External links
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