HENRY STURGIS DRINKER
1850-1937
Willie’s first playmate in Hong Kong,
Harry (Henry Sturgis) Drinker went on to live a fascinating life!
Man with the Cat by Cecilia Beaux
Henry Sturgis Drinker
Engineer, Lawyer, University President
Early Life and Career
As Sarah said, Henry was almost the same age as Willie –
born on the 8th of November 1850 in Hong Kong –
where his father was was an expatriate merchant from Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, when Henry was just 8 years old, his father died of dysentery in Macao.
His mother brought the family back to the United States, but she developed cancer and died just 2 years later.
Henry graduated from Lehigh University, at the time a tuition-free engineering school for young men.
A talented mechanical engineer working for the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR), at just 21 years old, he was put in charge of the construction of the 2-mile Musconetcong Tunnel connecting Easton, Pennsylvania and New York City. Henry also got a law degree and practiced law for the LVRR for several years.
He left to become the fifth president of Lehigh University, where he used his business skills to expand the offerings of the school as well as the campus facilities and make it more financially secure.
READ ABOUT THE TUNNEL AND ITS CHALLENGES
Family Life
Henry married Aimee Ernesta “Etta” Beaux.
She had suffered loss as a child as well, since her mother died when she was 3 years old, a few days after giving birth to her sister, Cecilia.
Cecilia Beaux became a famous artist who was extremely well known at the time.
Many of her paintings were of the Drinker family.
Les derniers jours d’ enfance by Cecilia Beaux
Mrs. Henry S. Drinker by Cecilia Beaux
Children
The Drinkers had six children, each of whom led a successful life:
Henry “Harry” Sandwith Drinker (1880–1965)
prominent lawyer, musician and composer,
sponsored the von Trapp family when they came to the US,
providing them with housing and financial support for their first three years.
Henry Sandwith Drinker by Cecilia Beaux
Mrs. James Blathwaite Drinker and Her Son
by Cecilia Beaux
James Blathwaite Drinker (1882–1971)
banker, executive with J.B. Drinker & Co.
Cecil Kent Drinker M.D. (1887–1956)
physician and professor,
founder of the Harvard School of Public Health
Portrait of Cecil Kent Drinker by Cecilia Beaux
Aimee Ernesta Drinker (1892–1981)
interior decorator and writer
.
Ernesta – Child with Nurse by Cecilia Beaux
Brother and Sister by Cecilia Beaux
Philip Drinker (1894–1972)
chemical engineer and industrial hygienist,
co-inventor of the iron lung
.
Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
historian and biographer,
winner of the 1958 National Book Award for Nonfiction
.
Cecilia Beaux
1855-1942
Henry Sturgis Drinker’s sister-in-law was Cecilia Beaux -an American portraitist, who was quite famous in her day.
Never marrying, she considered herself a “New Woman” who devoted her life to her art, studying in Philadelphia and then Paris.
She rejected the styles of impressionism and cubism, preferring classical and realist techniques.
Subjects
Cecilia’s subjects were either elite members of society or her sister Etta’s family – the Drinkers.
She painted then first lady Edith Roosevelt and her daughter and even sketched President Theodore Roosevelt.
Dorothea and Francesca
by Cecilia Beaux
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and Daughter Ethel
by Cecilia Beaux
Accolades
Cecilia’s works were exhibited at the Paris “Salon” Exhibition and also in the United States in Philadelphia and Chicago.
She was the first woman to have a teaching position at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she taught for 20 years.
Her paintings were similar in style to John Singer Sargent and someone at an exhibition once joked that her paintings “were the best Sargents in the room.”
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw
by John Singer Sargent
In 1899, William Merritt Chase regarded her as “not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived.”
In 1933, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt presented Beaux with the Chi Omega fraternity’s gold medal, for “the American woman who had made the greatest contribution to the culture of the world.”
Works by Cecilia Beaux can be seen at
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
and many other art museums in the US and abroad.