Williamina Fleming
Williamina Fleming.
Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory.
Profile
Full name
Williamina Paton Fleming
Name at birth
Williamina Paton Stevens
Familiar name
Mina
Born
May 15, 1857, in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died
May 21, 1911, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Career
Fleming had no formal education beyond her childhood schooling. She emigrated to the United States in 1878 and soon entered domestic employment with Harvard College Observatory Director Edward Pickering. She joined the observatory’s staff of women computers full-time in 1881 and later became their supervisor. She was appointed curator of astronomical photographs in 1899 and held that title until her death. Her work was central to the observatory’s systematic data collection efforts and she made essential contributions to the advances made there through the analysis of stellar magnitudes and spectra.
Related guides
Acknowledgements
For assistance with images, we wish to thank Thomas Burns, curator of astronomical photographs, Harvard College Observatory along with the staff of the Harvard College Observatory Plate Stacks. We also express our appreciation for help with searching for plates to Lisa Bravata, curatorial assistant, Harvard College Observatory Plate Stacks. We would also like to express our thanks to Sara J. Schechner, the David P. Wheatland curator of the Collection of Historical Instruments, Harvard University, and to Sara Frankel, collections manager, Collection of Historical Instruments, Harvard University. We also thank the staff of the John G. Wolbach Library at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for their support. Bretislav Friedrich thanks Georgene and Dudley Herschbach for discussions related to this website, and John Doyle and Hossein Sadeghpour for their hospitality during his stay in 2021–2023 at the Harvard physics department and at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (ITAMP) of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
Cite this resource
Bretislav Friedrich and Maria McEachern, “Williamina Fleming,” Women in the History of Quantum Physics collection, American Institute of Physics, 2026, https://www.aip.org/history/williamina-fleming.