The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [58]
Yerkes was a curious target for Hale's entreaties, as he had a shadier pedigree than other robber barons of his time. A suave and colorful character, Yerkes had made a fortune dealing in Philadelphia's municipal securities, until some questionable dealings led to his serving a prison term for misappropriation of public funds. It earned him the reputation as “the embodiment and representative of corruption in municipal affairs.” Having lost his wealth in the City of Brotherly Love, he quickly made the money back once he moved to Chicago and bribed the appropriate politicians to gain control of the city's streetcar system. Right before this move west, Yerkes had also divorced his wife, who had borne him six children, and married a much younger woman, Mary Adelaide Moore, renowned for her beauty. So memorable was Yerkes' life that author Theodore Dreiser immortalized it in his fictional works The Financier and The Titan. Dreiser described this era in his autobiography as the moment in American history when “giants were plotting, fighting, dreaming on every hand.”
Yerkes clearly savored having his name attached to a big telescope. It gave him class (not to mention an improved credit rating with local bankers, which may have been his aim all along). The newspaper Chicago Daily Inter Ocean reported that “Mr. Yerkes, when he took the matter in hand, simply stipulated that the observatory and its telescope should beat everything of its kind in the world.” The Chicago Tribune chimed in as well, smugly writing that “the Lick Telescope will shortly be licked.”
With great pomp and circumstance, the Yerkes Observatory officially opened in 1897. Hale, at the age of twenty-nine, was appointed its director. Seventy miles from Chicago, the observatory was situated in the resort town of Williams Bay, Wisconsin, a tiny hamlet next to Lake Geneva, where several University of Chicago trustees just happened to have summer homes. The shift to the “new astronomy” was highly evident at the new establishment, a fact noted at its dedication. Keeler, the keynote speaker, told the distinguished audience that “there may be some who view with disfavor the array of chemical, physical and electric appliances crowded around the modern telescope, and who look back to the observatory of the past as to a classic temple whose severe beauty has not yet been marred by modern trappings.” The Yerkes Observatory was forging a new pathway for studying the heavens. Hale, a committed astrophysicist, made sure that there were photographic darkrooms, spectroscopic labs, and instrument shops specifically devoted to the astrophysicist's concerns. Hale was changing how an observatory worked.
A restless and anxious man, Hale was the astronomical equivalent of an industrial entrepreneur, always on the lookout for new technologies and new methods for obtaining cutting-edge results. Before the magnificent Yerkes dome even rose above Lake Geneva, Hale had already convinced his wealthy father to buy the materials for yet another telescope, this time a large reflector. A mirror blank, sixty inches in width, was cast for him by the Saint-Gobain glassworks, a French maker of wine bottles. By the time astronomers from around the world arrived at Yerkes for its opening, telescope maker George Ritchey was busy in the observatory's optical shop grinding the mirror and designing its support system. The descendant of Irish immigrant craftsmen and a former high school teacher in woodworking, Ritchey was employed by Hale as a skilled optician, having had some training in astronomy before he dropped out of college. He was legendary for his artistry in designing and fashioning new telescopes, but his obsession to achieve technical perfection led to his reputation as a cantankerous cuss.
Tests on the Yerkes 40-inch lens had made it obvious that lenses were reaching their limit. If the lens were any larger, the glass would sag under its own weight, distorting the image. To go bigger, both