Russell Williams Porter was an American explorer, optician, artist and engineer.
Background
He was born on December 13, 1871 in Springfield, Vermont, United States, the youngest of five children of Frederick Wardsworth Porter and Caroline (Silsby) Porter. His father, an inventor, pioneer daguerreotypist, and successful manufacturer of toy baby carriages, was of English lineage - his ancestors having immigrated to New England in the seventeenth century. His mother, a former schoolteacher, was the daughter of a skilled mechanic and stone mason whose family had settled in Charlestown, soon after the American Revolution.
Education
Porter attended the Springfield public schools and the Vermont Academy in Saxon's River (1887 - 1889), before going for a year to Norwich University and then to the University of Vermont for his junior year.
A special student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1894 to 1898, he worked with Constant Désiré Despradelle, Rotch professor of architectural design, who had an office in Boston. In 1894, after hearing Robert Peary lecture on the Arctic, he was seized with "Arctic fever. "
Career
From 1890 to 1892 he worked as a draftsman for the Associated Mutual Insurance Company and then borrowed money to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He sailed with Frederick A. Cook aboard the Miranda in 1894. They ran aground in Greenland and were rescued by a fishing schooner. During the next several years Porter took part in at least ten expeditions to the Arctic. They included voyages on Peary's ship to Baffin Land in the summer of 1896 and to Greenland (1899), in which Porter led groups of M. I. T. students and thus earned money to pay his college expenses. In 1901, as assistant scientist and artist, he went with the tyrannical Evelyn Briggs Baldwin to Franz Josef Land on an expedition financed by William Ziegler to search for the North Pole. The men mutinied, and the expedition returned home without reaching the pole.
In 1903 Porter joined another Ziegler expedition, led by Anthony Fiala. The base ship, a whaler, the America, was crushed in the Arctic ice and sank. After being marooned for nearly two years, during which the explorers barely survived the bitter cold and devastating hunger, they were rescued by relief ships. Porter, "starved to a skeleton, " had suffered permanent loss of hearing.
He returned to civilization, vowing to spend the rest of his life in the tropics. Nevertheless, in 1906 he joined Cook again for a trip to Alaska and thus inadvertently became part of a hoax perpetrated by Cook: after sending the rest of the party on a side expedition, Cook claimed to have reached the peak of Mount McKinley, accompanied only by one guide. In 1907, after numerous expeditions within the Arctic Circle and three shipwrecks, Porter settled at Marshall Point, a fishing village at Port Clyde, Maine, where he earned a livelihood by designing and building cottages. From 1915 to 1918 he was an instructor of architectural design at M. I. T.
In the Arctic, however, his celestial observations had roused his interest in astronomy, and in 1911, spurred by an article in Popular Astronomy, he began making his own telescope, a hobby that changed the course of his life. He became fascinated by the challenge of designing and making lenses and worked for a time (1917 - 1919) with the optical division of the National Bureau of Standards. Meanwhile, his work had attracted the attention of James Hartness, president of Jones and Lamson Machine Company in Springfield, Vermont, and himself an amateur astronomer. Through Hartness, Porter became optical research engineer with the firm. While there, he developed the screw thread comparator and the turret-type telescope mounting, devised by Hartness, and continued to follow his hobby of telescope making.
After successfully completing a ten-inch mirror, he described the work in "The Poor Man's Telescope" (1921) to show how anyone with enough time and patience could achieve similar results. His enthusiasm was contagious and soon amateurs, first in Springfield and then all over the country, were following his trail. By 1925, with the help of Albert G. Ingalls, associate editor of Scientific American, he had organized the Telescope Makers of Springfield and had built Stellafane, a mecca for amateur telescope makers, who considered Porter their patron saint; it is still the focus of their annual summer gatherings. The first edition of Amateur Telescope Making, a collection of articles and detailed drawings chiefly by Porter, appeared in 1926; edited by Ingalls, it went through a succession of expanded editions and became the bible of the nation's telescope enthusiasts.
In 1928 the course of Porter's life again changed abruptly when, through Ingalls, he met George Ellery Hale, who was then planning the construction of the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain. Impressed with Porter's ideas, Hale invited him to California to assist in designing the giant instrument. Porter moved to Pasadena, an associate in optics and instrument design and remained there for the rest of his life. Porter's chief contribution lay in his ability to visualize the complex problems and, through three-dimensional designs made to scale from blueprints, to create working models for the engineers.
During World War II, when work on the telescope was suspended, he applied his skills to the making of roof prisms; to the design of landing craft, rockets, and fuses; and to other projects for the navy. Porter died of a heart attack in Pasadena.
Achievements
Russell Williams Porter is referred to as one of the founders of amateur telescope making. He made astronomical observations for the determination of time and position, discovered several new islands in the Arctic. Porter also helped to design, not only the 200-inch mounting but also the optical, instrument, and machine shops and the astrophysical laboratory on the California Institute of Technology campus. Besides, he designed the dome on Palomar Mountain, after making a contour map of that region.
The crater Porter on the Moon and the crater Porter on Mars are named in his honor.
Although Porter's family had been Swedenborgians, he considered himself a Unitarian.
Personality
By nature easygoing and imperturbable, he was modest and unselfish and had great energy.
Quotes from others about the person
Because of the diversity of Porter's talents, Hartness called him the "Springfield Leonardo. "
Interests
Porter loved to sketch, and he painted in watercolors, in oils, and in pastels - from the Arctic to California. An enthusiastic musician, he composed "just for fun. " In fact, he got fun out of everything he did.
Connections
In November 1907, Porter married Alice Belle Marshall, the postmistress at Port Clyde. Their two children were Marshall (who died young) and Caroline.
