Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell, was the first acknowledged female astronomer in the United States, she was born August 1, 1818 in Nantucket, Massachusetts to William and Lydia Mitchell. Maria was the third child of a Quaker family with ten children and received her education at Cyrus Peirce’s School for Young Ladies. Her dedicated father, William Mitchell, contributed much to Maria’s education in astronomy, as he was an astronomer and teacher himself. A strong believer of equality for all, Maria’s father deeply encouraged his daughter to receive the same education as boys. (1)

She attended the school at which her father was the master, where she found a love for nature. She then spent a year with the school presided over by Cyrus Peirce, but she left the school in 1835 at the age of 17 to open her own school to train girls in science and math. (1)

In 1836, Maria went to work as the librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum. Over the next twenty years, she further developed her passion for knowledge by reading as many books as she could when the library was closed. While she spent her days reading, she spent her nights observing the sky with her father. William had built an observatory on top of the nearby Pacific Bank, where he was the principal officer, and this served as a catalyst for her achievements in astronomy. On October 1, 1847, at the age of 29, Maria Mitchell discovered a comet.  Not only was this a first in American science, she used a mere two-inch telescope, which illustrates her true skill as an astronomer. After some controversy with an Italian man who claimed the discovery, she was awarded the international medal for this achievement. The comet was named "Miss Mitchell's Comet" and was featured in Elias Loomis’ The Recent Progress of Astronomy. As a result, she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848. Just 30 at the time, she would be the only woman thus recognized for almost a century into the future. (This is really cool because she had a very small telescope and she was a women) (1)

She was later elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Philosophical Society (which is still in buissness in Philadelphia), Mitchell also probably was the first woman employed in a professional capacity by the federal government. Equally important, she refused to enforce the petty rules of female behavior that were expected in this place and time.  The Vasser faculty respected Mitchell, but they initially expected her to teach astronomy while insisting that the college’s female students were not allowed to go outside at night. She retired from Vassar in 1888, but continued her research in Lynn, Massachusetts, where her sister lived.  She passed away on June 28, 1889 of a brain disease, but not before proving women’s potential in science. (1)After her death, her friends and supporters founded the Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket in 1902; they preserved her home, which is open to visitors. (3)

She now has a museum and aquarium in her dedication. (3)

It is really cool that she accomplished so much in her seventy years of her life, it stinks that this didn’t happen sooner though.

Sources

(1)    http://www.nwhm.org

(2)    2013

(3)    http://www.mariamitchell.org/