MARIA MITCHELL

By Irene Stuber

Born 08 01 1818, Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was also elected to Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1905. MM established the orbit of a new comet in 1847 using her home telescope while working days as a librarian. It thrust her into international prominence but no offers of work were forthcoming (like Ruth Ginsburg and Janet Reno) in the field. While male astronomers of lesser fame were being given lucrative positions, she could not gain employment in the field.

In 1858 a group of feminists gave her a large telescope so she could continue her work because. In 1865 MM became the much admired professor of astronomy at Vassar Female College and director of its observatory. She founded the Association for the Advancement of Women in 1873.

Born on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, she showed a precocious interest in science and mathematics as a child. ("The stars seem so close when looking at them from the sea...") As a teenager MM worked at Nantucket's Athenaeum during the day and taught herself astronomy by reading books. She was completely self taught in the sciences and astronomy. As the honored Vassar professor, MM was a pioneer in the daily photography of sunspots and was the first to discover that they were not clouds but whirling vortices of gas on the sun's surface. She also studied solar eclipses, double stars, nebulas, and the satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. An observatory was erected in her honor on Nantucket.