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Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell The Life of Maria Mitchell and How She Became the First Woman Astronomer in the United States This paper will discuss the life of Maria Mitchell and how she became the first woman astronomer in the United States. It will tell of where she grew up. How she climbed the ranks to achieve her goals and how she came into discovering her true passion of astronomy. By describing the events that made this courageous woman, we can see clearly how she set an example for her gender in the Nineteenth century. Women have always been at the forefronts of science, even though they have not always taken the credit for it. One of the defining marks of humanity is our ability to affect and predict our environment. Science - the creation of structure for our world - technology - the use of structure in our world - and mathematics - the common language of structure - all have been part of our human progress, through every step of our path to the present. Women and men together have researched and solved each emerging need. But in beginning of this paper, we will begin at the beginning and reveal the location of her birthplace to tell of her origins to seek the woman who broke many gender stereotypes. Maria Mitchell, an American astronomer, “was born August 1, 1818 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA.” (McPherson p.12) Her father, a member of the Quaker religion felt strongly that girls should receive education equal to that of boys. When Maria was sixteen she was already a teaching assistant to a schoolmaster. “It was this strict schoolmaster that gave Maria the advantage over the others,” (Weatherford p.144) in that she could quickly find problems and solve them. He was Cyrus Peirce, the founder of the first normal school in America, nowadays called a teacher's college. When she was seventeen she decided to open a school of her own. She rented a room and put an advertisement in the newspaper. The school closed after a year when Maria was offered a job as a librarian of Nantucket's Atheneum Library. This job was perfect for her, because she was earning a good salary and had time to study and read books. Her father also was “hired as cashier of the Pacific Bank.” (p.54) With his new job came the living quarters attached to the bank. Mr. Mitchell built an observatory on the roof and installed a brand-new four-inch telescope. He used it to do star observations for the United States Coast Guard and Maria helped her father with the measurements. One night in the Autumn of 1847, Maria looked at the sky through the telescope and saw a star five degrees above the North Star where there had been no star before. She had “memorized the sky and was sure of her observation.” (Gromley p.55) This was the great discovery that her constant vigilance brought into the open, as she saw a comet of unknown origin. It occurred to her that this might be a comet. Maria recorded the presumed comet's coordinates. The next night the star moved again. This time she was sure it was a comet. Her father wrote to Professor William Bond at the Harvard University observatory about Maria's discovery. Professor Bond submitted Maria's name to the king of Denmark who had offered a gold medal to a person who discovers a comet seen only through a telescope. Another person, “Father Francesco de Vico of Rome discovered the same comet two days later” (Mitchell p.105) than Maria Mitchell and the decision was made to award him the prize before news of Maria's earlier discovery arrived in Europe. After some negotiations Maria Mitchell was awarded the medal for this discovery a year later. The comet was named "Miss Mitchell's Comet." She continued working as a librarian, but now she was also receiving letters of congratulations from scientists and tourists were coming to take a look at the woman astronomer. In 1848 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences voted her the first woman member. The Association for the Advancement of Science did the same in 1850. In 1849 she was offered a job by the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office as a computer (one who does computations) of tables of positions of the planet Venus. She also started traveling to attend scientific meetings. By paying her dues in this way, she learned what real commitment was during a time when men were very limited in their views of women and their place in a culture. The “gender roles were completely separated and Maria overcame all of these obstacles” (Weatherford p.67) by her determination and fight. By working the library and the data base, she ready access to information that she could get to accomplish her own studies and further her won advancement of career. In 1856 she received an offer from a rich man named General Swift to accompany his daughter Prudence on a trip to the South and to Europe. Maria accepted and took her almanac work with her. They went south to New Orleans, then to London, where Maria visited the Greenwich Observatory. Prudence returned to the States, but Maria remained in Europe. She went to France on her own, then continued on to Rome with Nathaniel Hawthorne's family. She had hoped to visit the Vatican Observatory, but she was told that women were not admitted. She tried to get special permission and finally succeeded, but was allowed to go in only in the daytime. She was not able to “look at the stars through the telescope at night.” (Mitchell p.55) After her return home, she was presented with a new telescope bought with money collected by women for the first woman astronomer of the United States. She used it to study sunspots and other astronomical events. In 1865 she became professor of astronomy and director of the college observatory at the newly-opened Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York where she had the use of a twelve-inch telescope, the third largest in the United States. She often invited her students to come up to the observatory at night and watch meteor showers or other astronomical events. Maria Mitchell continued her own research in studying the surface features of Jupiter and Saturn and photographing stars. In 1869 she was the first woman elected to the American Philosophical Society. In 1873, she helped found the American Association for the Advancement of Women and served as its president from 1874 to 1876. In 1873 she attended the first meeting of the Women's Congress. The Congress was also attended by many women's rights activists, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, etc. Maria Mitchell retired from Vassar in 1888 because of poor health. She died June 28, 1889 in Lynn, Massachusetts. Soon after Maria's death her friends and supporters founded the Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket in 1902. In 1905 she was elected to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans at New York University (now at Bronx Community College). In 1994, she was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The house on Nantucket where Maria was born is open to the public during the summer. By creating an environment to remember Maria by, they have preserved her memory for years to come and shows the legacy of achievements that she has created. In conclusion, On October 1, 1847 Maria Mitchell discovered a telescopic comet, an accomplishment for which she received a gold medal from King Frederick of Denmark. She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society. She was a Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College. She founded and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Women. She led one session of the Women's Congress. Maria was given an honorary degree from Columbia College. A crater on the moon was named for her. Posthumously, a tablet with her name was put in the New York University Hall of Fame, her name was carved in a frieze at the Boston Public Library, and she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. With all of these accomplishments in her career, it is not a wonder that she became the first woman astronomer in the United States of America. By proving herself worthy of what a man could do, she excelled beyond the call of duty and met all of the criteria that a man was supposedly only capable of doing. By having the courage and faith to do what she loved, she set the example for many women in the future to rise through the ranks of men and become just as successful. Bibliography: Bibliography: Gormley, Beatrice, Maria Mitchell: The Soul of an Astronomer, Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company, December 1995. McPherson, Stephanie, Hetty Mitchell (Illustrator), Rooftop Astronomer: A Story about Maria Mitchell Lerner Publishing Group, The, June 1990. Mitchell Kendall, Phebe, Lee and Shepard, Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals, 1896. Weatherford, Doris, American Women's History, Prentice Hall General Reference, 1994.

Word Count: 1471