Trailblazers

Sanctuary celebrates Women's History Month with a woman whose many firsts and ardent advocacy for women's education in the fields of math and science makes her an historic figure to be honored by all who have followed in her footsteps.  

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Maria Mitchell
​(1818-1889)

Maria Mitchell (pronounced Ma-RYE-ah) was a woman of many firsts: the first woman astronomer in the U.S.; the first American scientist to discover a comet; the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848. She was also a librarian, naturalist and educator.

Maria attended Cyrus Peirce’s School for Young Ladies. After finishing her studies, she opened a school training girls in math and science at the age of 16. In 1836, she went to work as the librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, where for twenty years, she spent her days reading and nights with her father at the observatory he built on top of the nearby Pacific Bank.

In 1847, at the age of 29, she discovered a telescopic comet (using a two-inch telescope) for which she was awarded a gold medal by King Frederick VI of Denmark. The comet was named "Miss Mitchell's Comet,. Her discovery thrust her into the international spotlight.

After the Civil War, Vassar College founder, Matthew Vassar, recruited Maria to join the faculty, where she had access to a twelve-inch telescope, the third largest in the U.S. She began to specialize in the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn. She defied social conventions by having her female students come out at night for class work and celestial observations, and she brought noted feminists to her observatory to speak on political issues. Her research and that of her students was frequently published in academic journals that traditionally only featured men.

She retired from Vassar in 1888, but continued her research in Lynn, Massachusetts, where her sister lived. Maria died of encephalopathy in 1889. 

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Some interesting facts...

• Maria was the third of William and Lydia Mitchell’s ten children.
• As Quakers, her parents advocated equal education for girls.
• Maria was also an early advocate for science and math education for girls.
• Elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Philosophical Society, she was likely one of the first professional women employed by the U.S. government, hired to make calculations for a project conducted by the U.S. Coastal Survey.
• She was involved in the anti-slavery movement and suffrage movements.
• Maria was a leader in the formation of the American Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW), which later became the American Association of University Women.
• She served as AAW’s 1873 president.
• Maria gave an important speech during the nation’s centennial year in 1876 titled “The Need for Women in Science.”
• Friends and supporters founded the Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket in 1902.
• Astronomers honored her by naming a lunar crater on the moon for Maria Mitchell.
• Maria was one of three women elected to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans in 1905.
• She was an inductee into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Video: National Women's History Museum

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Maria Mitchell Association

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