Eben (sometimes incorrectly Ebenezer) Sumner Draper (June 17, 1858 – April 9, 1914) was an American businessman and politician from Massachusetts. He was for many years a leading figure in what later became the Draper Corporation, the dominant manufacturer of cotton textile process machinery in the world during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He served as the 44th Governor of Massachusetts from 1909 to 1911. 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 F. Draper, who would become a general and a 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 Allen's School at West Newton, and in the class of 1880 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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. By the time Eben Draper graduated, his father controlled the largest plant for manufacturing cotton machinery in the world. 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. When the Hopedale companies organized into one, Draper was given charge of the selling department. Following the elder Draper's death in 1887 control (and majority ownership) of the business passed to William. He incorporated the Draper Company (later the Draper Corporation), which introduced the innovative Northrop Loom to great success. 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