Strategies and Compromises: Women in Astronomy at Harvard College Observatory,1870–1920

This paper is derived from a longer article: Mack Pamela E. , “Straying from their orbits: Women in astronomy”, in Simon Kass G. Farnes Patricia A. , Women in science: Righting the record (Bloomington, 1990). Material from that article is used by permission of Indiana University Press.

Levin Miriam R. Mack Pamela E. , “The transformation of science education at Mount Holyoke in the gilded age”, presented in a joint session at the annual meeting of the History of Science Society and the American Historical Association, Cinncinati, Ohio , 28 December 1988.

Margaret Rossiter , Women scientists in America: Struggles and strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), 53.

Jean Deborah Warner , “Women astronomers”, Natural history , May 1979, 12–26.

For further development of the argument on separate work for women in astronomy see Mack , “Straying from their orbits”.

Helen Wright , Sweeper in the sky: The life of Maria Mitchell, first woman astronomer in America (New York, 1950), 71.

Byrd Mary E. , “Anna Winlock”, Popular astronomy , xii (1904), 254–8.

This approach made women's work particularly significant at the Harvard College Observatory, but other large observatories, including the Naval Observatory, Yerkes, Columbia, and Mt Wilson, followed Harvard's lead in hiring women assistants. Even without complete staff lists for some of the major observatories, my earlier research uncovered 164 women who worked at observatories between 1875 and 1920. Mack Pamela E. , “Women in astronomy in the United States, 1875–1920”, Thesis A.B. , Harvard University, 1977. For more complete statistics, consult John Lankford, who is doing a major study of the American astronomical community. Lankford presented a paper on “Women in the American astronomical community, 1859–1940”, at the History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Raleigh, North Carolina, 31 October 1987.

Howard Plotkin , “Edward C. Pickering and the endowment of scientific research in America, 1877–1918”, Isis , lxix (1978), 44–57.

Cannon Annie J. Pickering Edward C. , The Henry Draper catalogue, Annals of the Harvard College Observatory , xci (1918), p. iii.

Pickering E. C. , Official memorial for Fleming Williamina , in a scrapbook of notices on her death, HUG 1396–5, Harvard University Archives. For stories of how she came to be hired at Harvard see Mack , “Straying from their orbits”.

Her classifications are dependable, in other words, each class has its identifying features. However, the order and division of the classes were limited by the fact that Fleming worked from plates with low dispersion spectra, usually less than an inch long, and the plates were occasionally of poor quality. A number of Fleming's classes later turned out to be defects in the photographs, and these extra classes made it difficult for her to arrange the spectra in a consistent order.

Cannon Annie J. , “Williamina Paton Fleming”, Astrophysical journal , xxxiv (1911), 314–17.

Richardson Harriet Donaghe , “Photographic flashes from Harvard Observatory”, Popular astronomy , vi (1898), 481–7, p. 483.

The description of her supervision as stern comes from Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, interview held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 7 March 1977. Interestingly the common perception that Fleming worked more as a supervisor of the women's work than as a scientist does not reflect Fleming's view of herself. She wrote in her diary that she wished she was assigned to more scientific work and less administrative work and complained that she deserved a salary more comparable to those of the male assistant. See Rossiter , Women scientists in America , 56–57.

Cannon , “Williamina Paton Fleming”, 316. That women were welcomed fairly sincerely into the American Astronomical society is suggested by a story told by Furness (“Mary W. Whitney”, 31): In the winter of 1902 a pleasant incident happened which gave a final status to the position of women in the American Astronomical Society. The annual meeting was held in Washington in connection with the AAAS and it was planned to have a dinner. Notification blanks were sent out, and after some hesitation the invitation was refused with an intimation that perhaps the presence of women was not desired, that being the custom in several of the other scientific societies. A prompt response came from Professor Newcomb the president, which settled the question permanently. ‘I am much disappointed to notice that although you hope to be here at our meeting, you do not propose to join in the dinner. Possibly you may be under a mis apprehension, supposing that the dinner is only for the men of the society. Permit me, therefore to assure you that all members are equal, and that we should like very much to have our lady members with us.’.

DeVorkin David H. , “A sense of community in astrophysics: Adopting a system of spectral classification”, Isis , lxxii (1981), 29–49.

Antonia C. Maury Pickering E. C. , 7 May 1892, Harvard Archives, Harvard College Observatory Correspondence [hereafter HCO Corr.] UA V 630.17.7, folder Antonia Maury.

Pickering to Maury, 11 May 1892, HCO Corr. UA V 630.14. letter book A11, p. 137.

Ejnar Hertzsprung wrote to Pickering (in his own uncertain English):

But in one respect I have been disappointed, and I allow me directly to say a few words on that point.

On my opinion the separation by Antonia C. Maury of the c- and ac- stars is the most important advancement in stellar classification since the trials by Vogel and Secchi. But in the new catalogue the spectra of some of them as Alpha Cygni and Delta Cephei are not even mentioned as peculiar.

It is hardly exaggerated to say that the spectral classification now adopted is of similar value as a botany which divide the flowers according to their size and color. To neglect the c- properties in classifying stellar spectra, I think, is nearly the same thing as if the zoologist, who had detected the deciding differences between a whale and a fish, would continue in classifying them together.

(Ejnar Hertzsprung to Pickering E. C. , 22 July 1908, HCO Corr. UA V 630.17.8, folder Hertzsprung.).

DeVorkin , “A sense of community in astrophysics”.

Maury Pickering , 21 December, no year. HCO Corr. UA V 630.17.5, Group 1, folder Antonia Maury.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin , interviewed by Gingerich Owen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 5 March 1968. Courtesy of the Niels Bohr Library of the American Institute of Physics.

Owen Gingerich , “Laboratory exercises in astronomy — Spectral classification”, Sky & telescope , xxviii (1964), 80–82.

Russell H. N. Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia H. Menzel D. H. , “The classification of stellar spectra”, Astrophysical journal , lxxxi (1935), 107–18.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin , “Miss Cannon and stellar spectroscopy”, The telescope , ser. 2, viii (1941), 62–63, p. 63.

Report of the Committee to Visit the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, quoted in “General notes”, Popular astronomy , xx (1912), 684.

Leavitt Henrietta S. Pickering , 21 May 1902, HCO Corr. UA V 630.17.5, group 2, folder Leavitt H. S. .

While she was in Peru, Annie Cannon wrote in her diary: “Magellanic Cloud (Great) so bright. It always makes me think of poor Henrietta. How she loved the ‘Clouds.’” Annie Cannon, Diary, entry for 20 April 1922, private collection of Margaret Mayall, recently transferred to the Harvard University Archives.

Pickering Edward C. , “Periods of 25 variable stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud”, Harvard College Observatory circular no. 173.

See for example, Leavitt to Pickering, 17 April 1913, HCO Corr. UA V 630.17.5, group 2, folder Leavitt H. S. .

Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An autobiography and other recollections (Cambridge, 1984), 146–7.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin , interview held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 7 March 1977.