Maria Mitchell by Juni Nims

Family

jnims26 — 2024-10-07 18:21:29 UTC

She had both parents growing up, and nine siblings- of whom she was third born. She was raised a Quaker (though she later converted to Unitarianism). Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, was a library worker, and her father William Mitchell was an amateur (though accomplished) astronomer and school teacher. She never married, but she had a repertoire of prominent and very cool friends, which included but was not limited to Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Born August 1st, 1818 in Nantucket, Massachusetts-Died June 28th, 1889 (70yo) in Lynn, Massachusetts

jnims26 — 2024-10-07 18:23:11 UTC

Young Maria Mitchell (Painted by Herminia Borchard Dassel, 1852)

jnims26 — 2024-10-09 14:59:47 UTC

She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848.

jnims26 — 2024-10-09 15:23:31 UTC

jnims26 — 2024-10-09 15:34:58 UTC

She spent the majority of her professional career as a professor at Vassar College-becoming their first female astronomy professor, despite the fact that she didn't even have a degree and was partly self taught, and partly taught by her father.

The United States of America's first female astronomer

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 14:56:40 UTC

Main fields: comets, orbitals, sunspots

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 14:57:19 UTC

Societies, journals, etc

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:02:07 UTC

She was a member of a variety of scientific societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Philosophical Society. Her 1847 discovery of "Miss Mitchell's Comet" was published in Silliman's Journal in January 1848, though it was published under her fathers name. She was featured numerous times in the Royal Society Catalog as well.

What is astronomy?

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:08:20 UTC

Astronomy explores space, the stars, planets and other celestial beings, technically anything outside of Earth's atmosphere.

In layman's terms...

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:08:46 UTC

Astronomy is the kind of science where they look at stars and planets.

When did astronomy get its start?

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:12:41 UTC

Around 1000BCE, the Assyro-Babylonians had just begun to document astrological observations.

Who are some other famous astronomers?

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:13:19 UTC

Edwin Hubble (yes, like the telescope!), Galileo Galilei, and Carl Sagan (my grandparents favorite)

Known for...

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:14:52 UTC

Discovering and documenting comet C/1847 T1, which later came to be known as Miss Mitchell's Comet, in 1847 with a two-inch telescope.

Mitchell was a trailblazer for female astronomers and scientists, she even had her own math and science focused school for girls when she was just 16.

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:16:00 UTC

While researching sunspots later in her career, she also discovered that they were whirling vertical cavities and not clouds, as was previously thought.

jnims26 — 2024-10-10 15:17:13 UTC

What was she like?

jnims26 — 2024-10-11 12:38:43 UTC

She was kind, she formed close relationships with many of her students and paid special care to young women, because she wanted them to be able to achieve their scientific goals in the way she had. She enjoyed poetry-reading and writing-she was an abolitionist, as well as a part of the early women's suffrage movement.