Williamina Fleming: Curator of astronomical photographs at Harvard College Observatory
Williamina Fleming with Harvard College Observatory’s plate stacks, circa 1900.
Harvard University Archives UAV 630.271 (388) olvwork432040.
In 1899, additional responsibility, and a corresponding job title, were bestowed upon Fleming. On Monday morning, January 16, 1899, The Boston Herald carried the front-page headline “Harvard honors women,” while a bold-print subheading conveyed the news, “Mrs. Fleming appointed curator of astronomical photographs, charged with their care,” and, in less bold print, “She is the first of her sex to have her name placed with the list of the officers.” The article went on to say:1
Mrs. Mina Fleming, the recently appointed Curator of Astronomical Photographs, has a worldwide reputation at once as a painstaking and patient investigator and as a brilliant discoverer in the field that is covered by the Henry Draper Memorial. The names of Mrs. Draper and Mrs. Fleming will go down in astronomical history in honorable conjunction with those of Caroline Herschel, Mary Somerville, and Maria Mitchell.
It is entirely appropriate that Fleming should have been named as the first curator of astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory. Besides her numerous discoveries made via the astrophotographic glass plates, thanks to her familiarity with daguerreotype images since childhood, she knew and thoroughly trusted the photographic process. So much so that, in 1893, she defended this new method of astronomical investigation against its detractors writing:2
One must not always cling to the earliest method of accomplishing anything and assume that because it was the earliest and has held sway for centuries, it must consequently be the best, and also the only way.
During that year, the Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago and the observatory was expected to participate and provide exhibition material, which would be prepared by Fleming. Besides describing, in depth, the work at the observatory, the many discoveries made by her colleagues (to whom she is not the least bit stingy in giving credit), and herself, she discussed at some length the great benefit of the use of photography in astronomy and its utility in studying the true elemental makeup of stars from their spectra. Fleming wrote:2
[A]stronomical photographs must be considered more reliable for, in the case of a visual observer, you have simply his statement of how the object appeared at a given time as seen by him alone, while here you have a photograph in which every star speaks for itself, and which can at any time, now or in the years to come, be compared with any other photographs of the same part of the sky.
Fleming would also write a paper on women’s participation in astronomical study titled, “A field for woman’s work in astronomy,” to be read at the exposition and, subsequently, published in the journal Astronomy and Astro-physics.
During her many years of active research, Fleming classified 10,351 stellar spectra and discovered more than 300 variable stars and 10 novae by recognizing the particular type of bright lines in their spectra. She also identified 59 new gaseous nebulae, including that which came to be known as the Horsehead nebula, familiar to many with even a passing interest in astronomy. She discovered 94 Wolf–Rayet stars, and, along with Pickering and Henry Norris Russell, Fleming is credited with the discovery of white dwarf-type stars.
Additionally, she found “ninety-one stars of the fifth type, Class O, and sixty-nine stars of the Orion type having bright hydrogen lines.”3 In 1906, in recognition of her contributions to the study of astronomy, Fleming became the first American woman to be named an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London. She was also appointed as an honorary fellow in Astronomy at Wellesley College. Also in 1906, Fleming was elected as an honorary member of the Sociedad Astronómica de Mexico and received its Guadelupe Almendaro Gold Medal for the discovery of new stars.
References
- “Harvard Honors Women,” Boston Herald, Jan. 16, 1899, 1–2. See “Documents” below.
- M. Fleming, “A Field for Woman’s Work in Astronomy,” Astronomy and Astro-physics 12, no. 8, 1893, 683–689. See “Documents” below.
- Annie J. Cannon, “Williamina Paton Fleming,” Astrophysical Journal 34, 1911, 314–316. doi:10.1086/141894.
Documents
M. Fleming, “A Field for Woman’s Work in Astronomy,” Astronomy and Astro-physics 12, no. 8, 1893, 683–689 (.pdf, 1 mb) Boston Herald, “Harvard Honors Women,” January 16, 1899 (.pdf, 9 mb)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.