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Review: The Glass Universe illuminates the lives of early female astronomers

12 January 2017

Dava Sobel’s book on the persevering women computers of the Harvard Observatory also calls out the lack of recognition for today’s female scientists.

Harvard women computers
Williamina Fleming (standing) supervises a group of Harvard “computers,” including Evelyn Leland (rear table, center) and Ida Woods (rear table, right). Credit: Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.271 (E4116)

In 1881 Harvard astronomer Edward Charles Pickering hired his former maid Williamina Fleming to perform astronomical calculations, making Fleming the first of many female “computers” who worked under his directorship. Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars is a welcome spotlight on the women of the Harvard Observatory, long thought to do “work that no man would stoop to do.”

The Glass Universe is a worthy successor to volumes like Martha Ackmann’s The Mercury 13 and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, which introduce readers to pioneering women in the sciences who, in Ackmann’s words, “have done remarkable things but have escaped the touch of history.” (See the review of Hidden Figures, Physics Today, January 2017, page 57.) With Sobel’s book, the history of the Harvard computers escapes no more. Knowing the stories of those determined women, who persevered under trying circumstances (including being saddled with the dismissive nickname “Pickering’s harem”) and succeeded in their quest for knowledge, inspires me in my day-to-day endeavors. The Harvard computers chose to pursue science no matter the cost, and in doing so they laid the groundwork for our current understanding of stellar evolution.

Most of us in the broad field of astronomy have heard the story of a select few of Pickering’s female employees, particularly Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt. Cannon, Leavitt, and their colleagues spent days and nights observing the sky, obtaining and analyzing images and spectra of hundreds of thousands of stars. The women found relationships among spectra, luminosity, and temperature and identified thousands of binary and variable stars that advanced our understanding of stellar properties. Their work culminated in the discovery that hydrogen is the main component of stars and the establishment of the OBAFGKM ranking of stellar spectral classes. Today astronomers still rely on Leavitt’s period–luminosity relationship to determine distances to galaxies and, as a consequence, to measure the universe’s rate of expansion.

The Glass Universe
The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel (Viking, 2016; $30; 336 pp. Buy at Amazon).

Sobel’s book illuminates the lives of the computers, exploring what drove them in their dogged pursuit of stellar knowledge and how they experienced the scientific life they chose. I found joy in the fact that my life as a woman in science today is better because of the walls they tore down.

Sobel also gives us a glimpse into the biographies of Pickering and his brother, William, and of the observatory’s three primary philanthropists, Henry and Mary Anna Draper and Catherine Wolfe Bruce. Interspersed throughout the book are timely anecdotes about the science and politics of the day, such as the Shapley–Curtis debate about the nature of spiral nebulae and Cannon’s reaction to voting for the first time (“Very easy!”).

Importantly, Sobel’s story describes how female scientists at the observatory were supported and encouraged to pursue education and employment under the guidance of their male supervisors. Recognized for their significant contributions to stellar astronomy, the women were given coauthor status and nominated for prestigious national and international awards. A lengthy timeline at the end highlights the women’s many achievements and is a mostly suitable substitute for an index, which would have been helpful for finding topics and people.

Sobel reminds the reader that, despite the friendly work environment at the observatory, the female researchers faced challenges all too familiar to women in the field today. The Harvard computers received low pay and struggled to find a balance between their work and their private life―if they had any life outside the observatory at all. Sobel notes that computer Helen Sawyer’s courtship with astronomer Frank Hogg created buzz in the observatory, challenging a long-lasting joke: “Why is the Brick Building [the observatory] like heaven? Because there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage there.” Sawyer was the exception; most of Pickering’s computers were married to their work.

The final chapter, in which Sobel describes the ultimate fates and legacies of the people in her book, is the most interesting and thought-provoking. Because female astronomers have made so many contributions to the field, one would think they would continue to be recognized for their work. Yet, Sobel writes, there’s a huge gender imbalance in prestigious astronomy awards, including those endowed by Bruce and the Drapers. Only 4 out of the more than 100 recipients of the Bruce Medal have been women, and just 2 of the 48 recipients of the Draper Medal.

That’s a remarkably low award rate, considering that approximately 16.5% of members of the American Astronomical Society are women in the middle or toward the end of their careers. It seems a sad irony that awards named for the benefactors who supported women like Cannon and Leavitt are given almost solely to men. At least the Annie Jump Cannon Award, established in 1933, recognizes women for their accomplishments and potential.

Sobel mentions that women computers and astronomers chaperoned students to view the total solar eclipses of 1869, 1925, and 1932. A few of those female students eventually worked at Harvard in astronomy. It’s nice to think that those experiences encouraged many more to enter the field, even if they did escape the touch of history. Perhaps the upcoming total solar eclipse that will be visible from the continental US on 21 August 2017 will do the same: inspire young women to pursue astronomy and continue the long tradition of making remarkable contributions and discoveries.

Nicolle Zellner is an associate professor of physics at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and an affiliate of the New York Center for Astrobiology. She is a member of the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. Her research focuses on lunar impact events and the transfer of biomolecules among planetary bodies.

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