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Abstract:

    In 1875, three women were hired to work at the Harvard College Observatory. Prior to this, Maria Mitchell was the only American woman in astronomy, who like the few known European women astronomers, began working in the field as an assistant to a male relative. Between 1875 and 1927, 72 women were hired to work at the Harvard Observatory, where they concentrated in particular on stellar classification for the Draper catalogue — including the development of a classification system. What were the circumstances that allowed for this increase in the number of women employed to do this work? Edward Pickering, the 4th director of the Observatory, began hiring women because he could pay them less and they were willing to do meticulous work with greater precision than men could. Also, the nature of the classification work attracted more women workers to Harvard than to other observatories. From my own study of spectral classification, and by drawing on the work of historians of science Pamela Mack and Margaret Rossiter, and historian Sheila Rothman, I contend that the nature of the work done by these women, primarily computations and data recording, corresponded with society’s concept of the nature of work suited for women. As Maria Mitchell once said: "The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spiderweb of a micrometer…Routine observations… dull as they are, are less dull than the endless repetition of the same pattern in crochetwork."