Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was the first recognized woman astronomer in the United States.
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Today’s STEMinist was the first recognized woman astronomer in the United States. Driven by a love of math and science, she became a civil rights advocate, rejecting ideas of who scientists were supposed to be. Though she has a number of legacies, perhaps the most lasting one is a comet bearing her name.
Let’s talk about Maria Mitchell.
Maria Mitchell was born on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts, on August 1st, 1818. The Mitchell’s were Quakers, and Maria’s father, William, was a teacher and astronomer. Like most Quakers, Williams believed in educating boys and girls equally. All ten of his children, including Maria, were brought up believing in the power of learning. Maria in particular developed an early and deep appreciation for astronomy.
When she was 12, she helped her father calculate the position of their home by observing a solar eclipse. By 14, Maria had developed a reputation among sailors on the island, many of whom went to her for vital navigational computations needed for long whaling trips. After finishing her own traditional education at 16, Maria promptly founded a local school that trained other girls in math and science.
In 1836, while still a teenager, Maria became the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum. She would hold this position for the next twenty years.
The following decade of Maria’s life was seemingly idyllic. She spent her days reading, perched among the books at the Atheneum’s membership library. At night, she would head to the observatory her father had built on top of the nearby Pacific Bank. The two of them would spend hours together looking at the night sky.
On October 1, 1847, Maria discovered what would become known as “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.” That night, Maria had snuck away from a gathering at her parents’ house, and climbed onto their roof. Gazing through her two-inch telescope, Maria saw a bright blur streak across the sky. She hurried downstairs, excited to tell her father of her potential discovery.
At the time, it was well-known in science circles that the King of Denmark had offered up a gold medal to the next person to find a new comet. In 1847, that offer was nearly 20 years old. Maria’s father quickly wrote to the head of the Harvard Observatory. But storms delayed the letter’s delivery. By the time it finally arrived on October 7th, an Italian astronomer, Francesco de Vico, had claimed the comet -- and the gold medal.
The President of Harvard then took it upon himself to remedy the situation. Soon, news spread across both Europe and the United States of Maria’s discovery. Even Francisco de Vico acknowledged her rightful victory. Eventually, the King of Denmark reversed his decision, officially attributing the comet to Maria.
The next year, she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The vote was unanimous.
The discovery of Miss Mitchell’s Comet pulled Maria from obscurity. In 1849, she was hired to run calculations for what’s now known as the U.S. Naval Observatory, helping sailors determine their whereabouts using Venus. 1850, she became one of the first women elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Maria left her post at the Nantucket Atheneum in 1856. She traveled throughout Europe, meeting with other scientists and astronomers. She also became involved in civil rights movements, becoming both a suffrage and an anti-slavery advocate.
After the Civil War, Maria was recruited to teach at the newly-formed women’s college, Vassar -- though she initially turned down the post, arguing that she’d never received an advanced degree. At Vassar, she had access to one of the largest telescopes in the country, and developed a specialty in the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn.
As an instructor, Maria -- predictably -- threw off gender expectations. She was known for having her students attend nightly celestial observations, and travel across the country to observe eclipses. She brought in feminists to speak to on political issues, often hosting them at the observatory. She encouraged her students to submit to journals that traditionally only published men. In 1906, when the first list of Academic Men of Science was announced, three of her female protegees were included.
In 1873, Maria began serving as the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Women, an organization she’d helped found. She was also elected vice president of the American Social Science Association, one of the era’s few mixed-gender professional associations. In 1876, Maria delivered the now-famous speech, “The Need for Women in Science.”
Speaking in front of a crowd of hundreds, Maria said, “Does anyone suppose that any woman in all the ages has had a fair chance to show what she could do in science? The laws of nature are not discovered by accidents. Theories do not come by chance, even to the greatest minds.”
Her argument was not that women could not be scientists. Rather, it was that most women were never even given the opportunity to do so.
Maria taught at Vassar until 1888. She spent the last year of her life in Lynn, Massachusetts, living with her sister and continuing her research. She died in 1889, at the age of 70.
Maria was a pioneer in astronomy, pushing against the belief that only men, and only highly-educated men, could contribute to the advancement of science. But she also had a reputation for kindness, and for a kind of reflective wisdom that always left space for wonderment.
Take, for example, a diary entry Maria wrote several years after discovering her comet.
“The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us.”
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