47 Facts About Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator.

Maria Mitchell won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Christian VIII of Denmark in 1848.

Maria Mitchell was the first internationally known woman to work as both a professional astronomer and a professor of astronomy after accepting a position at Vassar College in 1865.

Maria Mitchell was the first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Maria Mitchell was born on August 1,1818, on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, to Lydia Coleman Mitchell, a library worker, and William Mitchell, a schoolteacher and amateur astronomer.

Maria Mitchell's father educated all his children about nature and astronomy and her mother's employment at two libraries gave them access to a variety of knowledge.

Maria Mitchell particularly showed both an interest in and a talent for astronomy and advanced mathematics.

Maria Mitchell often assisted her father in his work with local seamen and in his observations of the night sky.

Maria Mitchell's father was a dedicated public school teacher who pursued an interest in mathematics and astronomy, and he saw to it that Mitchell, who especially showed interest and talent, and all his children were indoctrinated with knowledge of astronomy.

Maria Mitchell developed experimental teaching methods, which she practiced in her future teaching positions.

Maria Mitchell made the decision to allow nonwhite children to attend her school, a controversial move as the local public school was still segregated at the time.

Maria Mitchell began working as the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum in 1836 and held this position for 20 years.

In 1843, Maria Mitchell left the Quaker faith and began to follow Unitarian principles, although she did not physically attend a Unitarian Church until more than twenty years later.

The Maria Mitchell family believes she witnessed personal papers of fellow Nantucketers blown through the street by the Great Fire of 1846, and because fear of another fire persisted, she burned her own documents to keep them private.

At 10:50 pm on the night of October 1,1847, Maria Mitchell discovered Comet 1847 VI using a Dollond refracting telescope with three inches of aperture and forty-six inch focal length.

Maria Mitchell had noticed the unknown object flying through the sky in an area where she previously had not noticed any other activity and believed it to be a comet.

Maria Mitchell published a notice of her discovery in Silliman's Journal in January 1848 under her father's name.

Maria Mitchell was celebrated at the Seneca Falls Convention for the discovery and calculation later that year.

On October 6,1848, Maria Mitchell was awarded a gold medal prize for her discovery by King Christian VIII of Denmark.

Maria Mitchell's medal was inscribed with line 257 of Book I of Virgil's Georgics: "Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus".

Maria Mitchell became the first American to receive this medal and the first woman to receive an award in astronomy.

Maria Mitchell became a celebrity following her discovery and awards, with hundreds of newspaper articles written about her in the subsequent decade.

In 1849, Maria Mitchell accepted a computing and field research position for the US Coast Survey undertaken at the US Nautical Almanac Office.

Maria Mitchell's work consisted of tracking the movements of the planets - particularly Venus - and compiling tables of their positions to assist sailors in navigation.

Maria Mitchell joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1850 and befriended many of its members, including the director of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry.

Maria Mitchell spoke with a number of natural philosophers including Alexander von Humboldt, William Whewell, and Adam Sedgewick before continuing her travels with Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family.

Maria Mitchell never married, but remained close to her immediate family throughout her life, even living in Lynn, Massachusetts with her sister Kate and her family in 1888.

Maria Mitchell was the first person appointed to the faculty and was named director of the Vassar College Observatory, a position she held for more than two decades.

Maria Mitchell edited the astronomical column of Scientific American during her professorship.

In 1869, Maria Mitchell joined Mary Somerville and Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz in becoming some of the first women elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Maria Mitchell maintained many of her unconventional teaching methods in her classes: she reported neither grades nor absences; she advocated for small classes and individualized attention; and she incorporated technology and mathematics in her lessons.

Maria Mitchell took pictures of planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, as well as their moons, and she studied nebulae, double stars, and solar eclipses.

Maria Mitchell then developed theories around her observations, such as the revolution of one star around another in double star formations and the influence of distance and chemical composition in star color variation.

Maria Mitchell often involved her students with her astronomical observations in both the field and the Vassar College Observatory.

Maria Mitchell's efforts contributed to the success of Vassar's science and astronomy graduates, as twenty-five of her students would go on to be featured in Who's Who in America.

Maria Mitchell taught at the college until her retirement in 1888, one year before her death.

Maria Mitchell later became involved in a number of social issues as a professor, particularly those pertaining to women's suffrage and education.

Maria Mitchell addressed the Association's First Women's Congress in a speech titled The Higher Education of Women in which she described the work of English women working for access to higher education at Girton College, Cambridge.

Maria Mitchell advocated for women working part-time while acquiring their education to not only ease the wages off of men paying for their education, but to empower more women to be in the workforce.

Maria Mitchell called attention to the place for women in science and mathematics and encouraged others to support women's colleges and women's campaigns to serve on local school boards.

Maria Mitchell served as the second president of the AAW in 1875 and 1876 before stepping down to form and head a special Committee on Science to analyze and promote women's progress in the field.

Maria Mitchell held this position until her death in 1889.

Maria Mitchell died of brain disease on June 28,1889, at the age of 70 in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Maria Mitchell was buried in Lot 411, in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket.

An organization, the Maria Mitchell Association, was established in Nantucket to preserve the sciences on the island and Mitchell's work.

Maria Mitchell was made a National Women's History Month Honoree for 1989 by the National Women's History Project and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.

Maria Mitchell authored three popular articles for Hours at Home, Century, and The Atlantic.