Wickliffe Draper

Wickliffe Draper
Col. Wickliffe Draper, seen here in United States military uniform.
Born	August 9, 1891 Hopedale, Massachusetts
Died	1972
Cause of death	prostate cancer
Education	Harvard University
Occupation	Philanthropist
Parent(s)	George A. Draper
Relatives	Eben Sumner Draper (uncle)

Wickliffe Draper (August 9, 1891 – 1972) was an American multimillionaire and philanthropist. He was an ardent eugenicist and lifelong advocate of strict racial segregation. In 1937, he founded the Pioneer Fund, a registered charitable organisation established to provide scholarships for descendants of original white American settlers and to support research into heredity and eugenics; he later became its principal benefactor.

Wickliffe Preston Draper was born on August 9, 1891 in Hopedale, Massachusetts. He was the son of George A. Draper, a wealthy textile machinery manufacturer (Draper looms) and the descendant of a long line of prominent Americans. Wickliffe Draper graduated from Harvard University in 1913. When the United States was slow to enter World War I, he enlisted in the British Army. When the U.S. eventually declared war, he transferred to the U.S. Army.

In 1924 Wickliffe P. Draper established the Draper Armor Leadership Award in 1924 as a means to competitively test the leadership of small Cavalry units in the US Army. The test was oriented to the platoon level of Horse Cavalry. The first Cavalry Leadership Test for small units was held at Fort Riley, Kansas—then home of the Cavalry School. In 1928, LTC Draper established a trust fund of $35,000 to perpetuate the award.

In 1927, he participated in the French mission of Captain Augiéras to the southern Sahara that discovered the remains of “Asselar Man”, an extinct human believed to belong to the Holocene or Recent Epoch. Some scholars consider it the oldest known skeleton of a black African. For this, the French Société de Géographie awarded him its 1928 Gold Medal, and in Britain he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. After the war, he traveled and went on numerous safaris. His large New York City apartment was reportedly filled with mounted trophies.

During this time, Draper became interested in the field of eugenics. Although eugenics had been a popular movement in the United States during the first three decades of the 20th century, by the early 1930s popular interest had begun to fade, as the underlying science came under question. Groups like the American Eugenics Society (AES) faced declining membership and dwindling treasuries. Draper helped ease the funding shortfall, making a special gift to the AES of several thousand dollars to support the society prior to 1932.