Maria Mitchell | |
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| Born | (1818-08-01)August 1, 1818 Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | June 28, 1889(1889-06-28) (aged 70) Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Known for |
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| Awards | King of Denmark's Cometary Prize Medal (1848) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
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Maria Mitchell (/məˈraɪə/mə-RY-ə;[1] August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an Americanastronomer, librarian,naturalist, and educator.[2] In 1847, she discovered acomet named 1847 VI (modern designationC/1847 T1) that was later known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet" in her honor.[3] She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by KingChristian VIII of Denmark in 1848. Mitchell was the first internationally known woman to work as both a professional astronomer and a professor of astronomy after accepting a position atVassar College in 1865.[4][5] She was also the first woman elected Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science.[4][6]
Mitchell is the namesake of theMaria Mitchell Association, theMaria Mitchell Observatory, and theMaria Mitchell Aquarium.
Maria Mitchell was born on August 1, 1818, on the island ofNantucket,Massachusetts, to Lydia Coleman Mitchell, a library worker, and William Mitchell, a schoolteacher and amateur astronomer.[7] The third of ten children, Mitchell and her siblings were raised in theQuaker religion.[6] William Mitchell educated all his children about nature and astronomy and her mother's employment at two libraries gave them access to a variety of knowledge.[8][9] Mitchell reportedly showed an early interest and talent in astronomy and mathematics. Her father taught her to operate a number of astronomical instruments includingchronometers,sextants,refracting telescopes, andDolland telescopes.[7][8][10] Mitchell often assisted her father in his work with local seamen and in his observations of the night sky.[7]
Additionally, Nantucket's importance as awhaling port meant that wives of sailors were left for months, sometimes years, to manage affairs at home while their husbands were at sea, thus fostering an atmosphere of relative independence and equality for the women of the island.[11]
After attending Elizabeth Gardner small school as a young child, Mitchell enrolled in the North Grammar school, where her father was the first principal. When Maria Mitchell was 11 years old, her father founded his own school on Howard Street. There, she was a student and also a teaching assistant to her father.[12] In 1831, at the age of 12, Mitchell aided her father in calculating the exact moment of asolar eclipse.[13][7]
William Mitchell's school closed, and afterwards she attendedUnitarian ministerCyrus Peirce's school for young ladies until she was about the age of 16.[6] Later, she worked for Peirce as his teaching assistant before opening her own school in 1835. Mitchell developed experimental teaching methods, which she later employed during her professorship at Vassar College.[6] She allowed nonwhite children to attend her school, though the local public school was stillracially segregated.[15]
In 1836, Mitchell began working as the first librarian of theNantucket Atheneum, a position she held for 20 years.[15][16][6] The institution's limited operating hours enabled Mitchell to assist her father with a series of astronomical observations and geographical calculations for theUnited States Coast Survey and to continue her own education.[6][5] Mitchell and her father worked in a small observatory constructed on the roof of the Pacific Bank building with a four-inch equatorial telescope provided by the survey.[6][5] In addition to looking fornebulae anddouble stars, the pair produced latitudes and longitudes by calculating the altitudes of stars and the culminations and occultations of the Moon, respectively.[6]
In 1843, Mitchell converted to Unitarianism, although she did not physically attend a Unitarian Church until more than twenty years later. Her departure from the Quaker faith did not cause a break with her family, with whom she appears to have remained close.[17] Historians have limited knowledge about this period in Mitchell's life because few of her personal documents remain from before 1846. Members of the Mitchell family believed she destroyed many of her personal documents in order to keep them private, having witnessed personal papers blown through the street by the Great Fire of 1846, and because fear of another fire persisted.[18]
At 10:50 pm on the night of October 1, 1847, Mitchell discovered Comet 1847 VI (modern designation C/1847 T1) using a Dollond refracting telescope with three inches ofaperture and forty-six-inch focal length.[19][20] She had noticed an unknown object flying through the sky in an area where she previously had not noticed any other activity and believed it to be a comet.[5] The comet later became known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet."[21][22] She published a notice of her discovery inSilliman's Journal in January 1848 under her father's name.[23] The following month, she submitted her calculation of the comet's orbit, ensuring her claim as the original discoverer.[23] Mitchell was celebrated at theSeneca Falls Convention for the discovery and calculation later that year.[23]
On October 6, 1848, Mitchell was awarded a gold medal prize for her discovery by King Christian VIII of Denmark.[17] This award had been previously established byKing Frederick VI of Denmark to honor the "first discoverer" of each new telescopic comet, a comet too faint to be seen with the naked eye.[6] A question of credit temporarily arose becauseFrancesco de Vico had independently discovered the same comet two days after Mitchell but reported it to European authorities first. Mitchell was declared the first to discover the comet and she was awarded the prize.[24] The only previous women to discover a comet were the astronomersCaroline Herschel andMaria Margarethe Kirch.
Mitchell's medal was inscribed with line 257 of Book I of Virgil'sGeorgics: "Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus" (Not in vain do we watch the setting and the rising [of the stars]).[25] Though the award was sent via letter in 1848, Mitchell did not physically receive the award in Nantucket until March 1849.[26] She became the first American to receive this medal and the first woman to receive an award in astronomy.[27][28][26]
Mitchell became a celebrity following her discovery of the comet, with hundreds of newspaper articles written about her in the subsequent decade.[23][29] At her home on Nantucket, she entertained a number of prominent academics such asRalph Waldo Emerson,Herman Melville,Frederick Douglass, andSojourner Truth.[5][30] In 1849, Mitchell accepted a computing and field research position for the U.S. Coast Survey undertaken at the U.S.Nautical Almanac Office.[31][8] Her work consisted of tracking the movements of the planets — particularlyVenus — and compiling tables of their positions to assist sailors in navigation.[8] She joined theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 1850 and befriended many of its members, including the director of theSmithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry.
Mitchell traveled to Europe in 1857. While abroad, Mitchell toured the observatories of contemporary European astronomersSir John and Caroline Herschel andMary Somerville.[6] She also spoke with a number of natural philosophers includingAlexander von Humboldt,William Whewell, andAdam Sedgewick before continuing her travels withNathaniel Hawthorne and his family.[6] Mitchell never married, but remained close to her immediate family throughout her life, even living inLynn, Massachusetts with her sister Kate and her family in 1888.[32]
Though Mitchell did not have a college education, she was appointed professor of astronomy atVassar College by its founder,Matthew Vassar, in 1865, and became the first female professor of astronomy.[31][14] Mitchell was the first person appointed to the faculty and was also named director of theVassar College Observatory, a position she held for more than two decades.[34][33] Mitchell also edited the astronomical column ofScientific American during her professorship.[6] Thanks in part to Mitchell's guidance,Vassar College enrolled more students in mathematics and astronomy thanHarvard University from 1865 to 1888.[24] In 1869, Mitchell became one of the first women elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society, alongsideMary Somerville andElizabeth Cabot Agassiz. She received honorary doctorates fromHanover College,[35]Columbia University,[36] andRutgers Female College.[37]
Mitchell employed many unconventional teaching methods in her classes. She reported neither grades nor absences, advocated for small classes and individualized attention, and incorporated technology and mathematics into her lessons.[14] Though her students' career options were limited by their gender, she emphasized the importance of their study of astronomy. "I cannot expect to make astronomers," she said to her students, "but I do expect that you will invigorate your minds by the effort at healthy modes of thinking. When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests."[38]
Mitchell's research interests were varied. She photographed planets such asJupiter andSaturn, as well as their moons, and studied nebulae, double stars, and solar eclipses.[39][14] Mitchell also developed theories around her observations, such as the revolution of one star around another in double star formations and the influence of distance and chemical composition instar color variation.[39]
Mitchell often involved her students with her astronomical observations in both the field and the Vassar College Observatory.[39] Though she began recordingsunspots by eye in 1868, she and her students began photographing them daily in 1873.[39] These were the first regular photographs of the Sun, and they allowed her to explore the hypothesis that sunspots were cavities rather than clouds on the surface of the Sun. For the totalsolar eclipse of July 29, 1878 Mitchell and five assistants traveled with a 4-inch telescope toDenver for observations.[23] Her efforts contributed to the success of Vassar's science and astronomy graduates, as twenty-five of her students would go on to be featured inWho's Who in America.[14]
After teaching at Vassar for some time, Mitchell discovered that she was being paid less than many younger male professors. Mitchell andAlida Avery, the only other woman on the faculty at that time, demanded a salary increase, which they received.[40][41][42] She taught at the college until her retirement in 1888, one year before her death.
In 1841, Mitchell attended theanti-slavery convention in Nantucket whereFrederick Douglass made his first speech, and she also became involved in the anti-slavery movement byboycotting clothes made of Southern cotton.[17] She later became involved in a number of social issues as a professor, particularly those pertaining towomen's suffrage and education.[4] She also befriended various suffragists includingElizabeth Cady Stanton. After returning from a trip to Europe in 1873, Mitchell joined the national women's movement and helped found theAssociation for the Advancement of Women (AAW), a group dedicated to educational reform and the promotion of women in higher education.[6] Mitchell addressed the Association's First Women's Congress in a speech titledThe Higher Education of Women in which she described the work of English women working for access to higher education atGirton College, Cambridge.[4][6]
Mitchell advocated for women working part-time while studying to make them more independent, as well as to increase their skills.[43] She also called attention to the place for women in science and mathematics and encouraged others to support women's colleges and women's campaigns to serve on localschool boards.[4][6] Mitchell served as the second president of the AAW in 1875 and 1876 before stepping down to head a special Committee on Science to analyze and promote women's progress in the field.[4][6] She held this position until her death in 1889.[4][6]
Mitchell died ofbrain disease on June 28, 1889, inLynn, Massachusetts at the age of 70. She was buried in Lot 411, inProspect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket.[44][45] TheMaria Mitchell Association was established to promote the sciences on Nantucket and preserve the legacy of Mitchell's work.[6] The Association operates a Natural History museum, anAquarium, a Science Library and Research Center,Maria Mitchell's Home Museum, and an Observatory named in her honor, theMaria Mitchell Observatory.[46]
In 1989, Mitchell was named aNational Women's History Month Honoree by theNational Women's History Project and was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.[34] She was the namesake of aWorld War IILiberty ship, theSS Maria Mitchell, and New York'sMetro North commuter railroad (with itsHudson Line endpoint inPoughkeepsie near Vassar College) has a train named theMaria Mitchell Comet. A crater on the Moon was also named in her honor.[6] On August 1, 2013, the search engineGoogle honored Maria Mitchell with aGoogle Doodle showing her in cartoon form on top of a roof gazing through a telescope in search of comets.[47][48][49]
Her unique place at the intersection of American science and culture has been captured in a number of recent publications.[50][51]
During her life, Mitchell published seven items in theRoyal Society Catalog and three articles detailing her observations inSilliman's Journal.[6] Mitchell also authored three articles forHours at Home,Century, andThe Atlantic.[6]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Professional experience: Nantucket Atheneum, librarian (1836–1856)
Great Fire of 1846 and seeing personal documents
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