Colin Johnson
Astronomy Honors I
Mr. Percival
March 5, 2008

Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell, the American Astronomer, was born on August 1, 1818, in Nantucket, MA. She was related, although not very closely, to Benjamin Franklin. She was one of nine siblings, born to William and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, and was fortunate in that her parents, as Quakers who believed in equal rights, insisted that their daughters received the same level of education as their sons. She attended a school led by Elizabeth Gardener in her youth, and later on she moved to North Grammar school, where her father was principal. Later on, when her father started his own school and she worked as his teaching assistant, she received at-home teaching from her father, including the field of astronomy. With her father’s help, Maria was able to calculate the exact moment of a total lunar eclipse at age 12. After her father’s school closed, she began working as a TA for Cyrus Pierce, and shortly after that, she left to open a new school of her own. In 1836, she became the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum Library.

In the 1840s, King Frederick VI of Denmark made a global proclamation that he would give an award to anybody who discovered a new comet that was invisible to the naked eye. In the autumn of 1847, Maria noticed a new “star” located where there had not been one previously, 5 degrees above the North Star. Upon observing its motion over the course of the next 24 hours, she became convinced it was a comet and submitted it to King Frederick. There was a minor dispute over who should receive the prize, as Father Francisco de Vico of Rome discovered the comet two days later than her, but actually submitted his discovery before her. However, the dispute was resolved, Maria received the prize, and the comet was named “Miss Mitchell’s Comet” in her honor.

She returned to her work as a librarian following this, but received numerous letters of recognition as the first professional female astronomer in the US. In 1848 she was voted in as the first female member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1850, the Association for the Advancement of Science did the same. In 1856, Maria received an offer from a man named General Swift to accompany him and his daughter on their trips around the world. Maria accepted and visited numerous observatories, ending up in Vatican City in Rome. She faced difficulty getting into the Vatican Observatory, as women were forbidden from using it, and was eventually granted permission to use it, but only during the day, never at night. However, she still made the first observation that sunspots were not clouds, but cavities in the sun’s surface.

In 1865, Maria became the Professor of Astronomy, as well as the director of the observatory at Vassar College, where she was able to use the third-largest telescope in the US. She continued her research, and began observing Jupiter and Saturn. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1869, and in 1873 she helped to found the American Association for the Advancement of Women.

In 1888, she retired from Vassar due to health issues, and on June 2, 1889, she died in Lynn, MA. In 1902, her friends founded the Maria Mitchell Association, and in 1905 she was elected to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans. In 1994, she was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

www.lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/mitchell.html

www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/mitchell.html

www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/mitc-mar.htm