The New Student's Reference Work/Clark, Alvan
Clark, Alvan, American optician,
engraver and manufacturer of telescopes, at
Cambridge, Mass., was born at Ashfield,
Mass., March 8, 1808, and died at
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 19, 1887. Early in
life he was a portrait-painter; but in 1845
he turned his attention to the making of
achromatic lenses and manufacture of
telescopes. Associated wtith his sons, he
constructed object-glasses for universities, for
the Naval observatory at Washington and
for the Lick observatory in California. He
also had orders for his firm from Russia,
from the Imperial observatory at Pulkowa.
After his death, in 1887, his two sons
pursued their father's vocation, manufacturing
optical instruments, making improvements
in telescopes, designing models, etc.
One instrument, a 40-inch telescope, they
constructed at a cost of half a million dollars
for the Yerkes observatory at Lake Geneva,
Wisconsin. One of the sons, Alvan Graham
Clark (1832—97), was also an astronomer
of note.