Editing Eben Sumner Draper (section)

==Early life and career==
Eben Sumner Draper was born in [[Hopedale, Massachusetts]] on June 17, 1858, the third and youngest son of George and Hannah B. (Thwing) Draper. His brothers were [[William Franklin Draper (politician)|William F. Draper]], who would become a [[Brigadier general (United States)|general]] and a [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. representative]], and [[George A. Draper]], with whom he would control the family business.  He was educated in the public schools of Hopedale, in [[Nathaniel Topliff Allen Homestead|Allen's School]] at [[West Newton, Massachusetts|West Newton]], and in the class of 1880 of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]].<ref name="Manufacturers1914"/>

The Drapers were one of the leading families of Hopedale, a community that had been established as an experiment in Christian communal living.  At the center of the community were a collection of factories principally engaged in the production of textile manufacturing equipment.  Eben's father, a major shareholder of the community, capitalized on financial difficulties in the businesses and the informal means by which they were organized to gain complete control of them in the 1850s.  He then took advantage of patents developed by his brother Ebenezer and protectionist tariffs to build a dominant monopoly position in the production of cotton textile processing machinery, and expanded his business interests to include a variety of other industrial manufacturing in Hopedale.  All three of his sons were eventually drafted into the business.<ref>Tucker, ''The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund'', pp. 17-19</ref>  By the time Eben Draper graduated, his father controlled the largest plant for manufacturing cotton machinery in the world.<ref name="Manufacturers1914">National Association of Wool Manufacturers, pp. 187-189</ref>  Draper spent three years in apprenticeship in various cotton mills learning all he could about cotton manufacturing before being made a partner in his father's firm.<ref name="Manufacturers1914"/><ref name="Commercial and financial New England illustrated">''Commercial and Financial New England Illustrated'', pp. 125-126</ref>

When the Hopedale companies organized into one, Draper was given charge of the selling department.<ref name="Commercial and financial New England illustrated"/>  Following the elder Draper's death in 1887 control (and majority ownership) of the business passed to William.<ref name=Tucker19_20/>  He incorporated the Draper Company (later the [[Draper Corporation]]), which introduced the innovative [[Northrop Loom]] to great success.<ref name=NatCyclo>''National Cyclopedia of American Biography'', pp. 386-387</ref>

William Draper, however, was a largely absentee owner, serving first in the [[United States Congress]] and then as [[United States Ambassador to Italy]].  The family business was reorganized (historian William Tucker describes it as a "coup" by Eben and his brother George) in the 1890s, at which time Eben Draper became its president.<ref name=Tucker19_20>Tucker, pp. 19-20</ref>

Hopedale as at the time seen as a model [[company town]]. The Drapers owned most of the housing in the town, but did not charge excessive rents to the factory workers, and offered services such as medical care to their employees.<ref name=Tucker19_20/>  The company was, however, a nonunion shop that did not pay very high wages, and the Drapers also moved some of their production to lower-wage areas of the southern United States during his administration of the business.<ref>Abrams, p. 187</ref>