Background

Clark was born on February 14, 1827, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of Alvan Clark and Maria Pease. He was the brother of Alvan Graham Clark.

Education

Clark was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover.

Career

Clark was the son of Alvan Clark, part of a family of refracting telescope makers in the 19th century. The firm, Alvan Clark & Sons, made many of the record-breaking refracting instruments, including the still-largest refracting telescope at the Yerkes Observatory, gaining "worldwide fame and distribution", wrote one author on astronomy in 1899.

Almost every American observatory built during this period, and some observatories abroad, housed an equatorial refracting telescope, and often auxiliary apparatus as well, made by the Clarks. Five times the Clarks made the objectives for the largest refracting telescope in the world; and the fifth of their efforts, the forty-inch lens at the Yerkes Observatory, has never been surpassed. Their optical work, which was recognized as unexcelled, was the first significant American contribution to astronomical instrument making. American telescopes had been made before, but none compared with those of European manufacture; by the end of the nineteenth century, however, partly because of the example set by Alvan Clark & Sons, several other Americans were making fine astronomical instruments that did indeed compare.

In their factory at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Alvan, and Alvan Graham specialized in optical work, while George supervised the mechanical constructions. Most of the telescopes produced were visual achromats, with objectives patterned after Fraunhofer’s lenses; the Clarks did not join in the contemporary mathematical search for more perfect lens configurations.

Achievements

• Clark is best known for his work at Alvan Clark & Sons, an American maker of optics. It became famous for crafting lenses for some of the largest refracting telescopes of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Membership

• American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

  1878

Connections

Clark married Jennie Moseley Clark.

Father:

Alvan Clark

Mother:

Maria Pease

Spouse:

Jennie Moseley

Brother:

Alvan Clark

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 3
  1971
• Alvan Clark and Sons Artists in Optics Excerpt from Alvan Clark and Sons Artists in Optics Clarks made the objectives for the largest refracting telescopes in the world; and the fifth of their efforts, their 40-inch lens at the Yerkes Observatory, has never been surpassed. Their optical work, which was recognized as unexcelled anywhere in the world, was the first significant American contribution to astronomical instrument making.
  1995
• Investigation of the Objective and Micrometers of the Twenty-Six Inch Equatorial Constructed by Alvan Clark & Sons