Association for the Advancement of Women 1st American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Today, AAAS celebrates the 200th birthday of Maria (Ma-RYE-uh) Mitchell — an achieved astronomer, educator, and our first woman member.
Born August 1, 1818, Mitchell devoted her life to science and to the education and advancement of women. She was the first American to discover a new comet, promptly named "Miss Mitchell's Comet" (now c/1847 t1), and celebrated all over the world. Mitchell's achievements not only established her as a first-rate astronomer, it improved the scientific reputation of the The states. In 1848, Mitchell became the offset woman to be elected to the American University of Arts and Sciences, and in 1850 she became the kickoff woman member of AAAS. She was elected a AAAS Fellow in 1875, part of the second cohort.
Mitchell was the third of 10 children built-in into a Quaker family unit on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Mitchell'due south father, William, was an astronomer and educator, acquainted with some of New England'due south leading scientists. Mitchell grew up attention local schools and helping her father maintain ships' chronographs and develop navigational plans using the stars. On her native Nantucket, the stars were not mere decorations in the dark sky, merely critical navigational tools for the whalers who drove the isle's marine economic system.
Mitchell made her landmark discovery on October 1, 1847, while scanning the heavens with the family telescope. With the aid of William Mitchell'due south astronomer friends at Harvard College, news of Maria'due south discovery spread. She achieved international recognition and was awarded a gold medal by the King of Denmark.
Later on spending her first 35 years on Nantucket, Mitchell left the isle in 1856 to realize her dream of seeing more than of the Usa and Europe. She traveled for the better part of a decade, visiting a number of important observatories and coming together the leading astronomers of the day. Mitchell was the first professor Matthew Vassar hired for his new college for women, Vassar College, and in 1865 she and her widowed male parent moved into the well-equipped Vassar Observatory. Soon, Mitchell was hosting lectures and discussions on scientific discipline, literature, politics, and women's issues.
Mitchell befriended intellectuals, feminists, writers, artists, and other scientists. At a fourth dimension when field experience for any undergraduate was a rarity, Mitchell helped her students comport and publish original research. Defying the conventions of the fourth dimension, Mitchell took her students, including future astronomers Mary Watson Whitney and Antonia Maury, to view Jupiter and Saturn (her favorite planets) by night. They likewise traveled across the country to observe of import celestial events in the heavens, such as the total solar eclipse of 1869. In 1878, Mitchell's all-woman team of astronomers traveled to Denver to detect another full solar eclipse. In 1882, having been turned away from government teams, Mitchell and her students remained at Vassar to discover the historic transit of Venus.
Mitchell taught and inspired Vassar students until her retirement in 1888. She died the following yr at 70 years onetime.
Mitchell once said, "We take a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more nosotros proceeds, the more is our desire; the more nosotros encounter, the more than nosotros are capable of seeing." Throughout her life, she encouraged many women to run into the earth and themselves differently. Her legacy has lived on in hereafter generations. The late astronomer Vera Rubin, a 1948 graduate of Vassar College, saw Mitchell every bit an inspiration, saying, "it never occurred to me I couldn't be an astronomer." We celebrate AAAS's offset woman member for her discoveries, her courage, and her insistence that science is for everyone.
Learn more
Reflecting on Our Roots: Maria Mitchell at 200
past Shirley Malcom
Source: https://www.aaas.org/aaass-first-woman-member-turns-200
0 Response to "Association for the Advancement of Women 1st American Academy of Arts and Sciences"
Post a Comment