Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Last November,
Speaker 1: we did an episode on Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin, who a
Speaker 1: lot of people had asked for an episode on. She
Speaker 1: was the astronomer whose discovery that the stars are made
Speaker 1: primarily of hydrogen and helium really fundamentally shifted our understanding
Speaker 1: of the universe and what's in it. And one of
Speaker 1: the names that kept coming up when working on that
Speaker 1: episode was any Jump Cannon, who's time at the Harvard
Speaker 1: Observatory overlapped with Cecilia Pangaposhkins. I really wanted to do
Speaker 1: an episode on her, but I also didn't want to
Speaker 1: have like two astronomers working at the exact same facility,
Speaker 1: partly at the same time, like right in a row.
Speaker 1: So any Jump Canon has been described as doing for
Speaker 1: stars what carl Annaeus did for organisms. The massive Star
Speaker 1: Catalog that she compiled became an incredible resource in the
Speaker 1: field of astronomy. The numbers that are used in that
Speaker 1: are still used to identify a lot of stars today.
Speaker 1: So consequently Annie Jump Canon became known both as the
Speaker 1: most famous woman astronomer of her day and also as
Speaker 1: the census taker of the Sky. I put her on
Speaker 1: the list for a future episode back when I worked
Speaker 1: on the one on Cecilia Panka Paschikin, but I kept
Speaker 1: putting it off just a little more to have a
Speaker 1: little space between two topics that have a lot overlap.
Speaker 1: So Annie Jumpcannon was born on December eleven, eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: in Dover, Delaware. Her father, Wilson Lee Cannon, had apprenticed
Speaker 1: as a ship's carpenter before building up his own lumber
Speaker 1: and ship building businesses and also buying a prosperous farm.
Speaker 1: He also served as a state senator, and according to
Speaker 1: his obituary in the Mornington, Delaware Morning News, he changed
Speaker 1: parties from Democrat to Republican after refusing to vote in
Speaker 1: support of Delaware seceding from the Union in eighteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: Before marrying Annie's mother, Wilson had four children with his
Speaker 1: first wife, Anne Scott, who died in eighteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: He married Mary Elizabeth Jump in eighteen sixty two, and
Speaker 1: Annie was their first child together. Annie also had two
Speaker 1: younger brothers, Wilson Jr. And Barrett. Annie's mother was interested
Speaker 1: in the night sky, and she passed that interest on
Speaker 1: to her daughter. They made a simple observatory in the
Speaker 1: attic where Mary tont Annie to identify the constellations reading
Speaker 1: an astronomical guide book by candle light. This apparently caused
Speaker 1: Annie's father some distress. Later in her life, she said,
Speaker 1: quote father was more interested in the safety of the
Speaker 1: house than in the movement of the stars. It was
Speaker 1: always with a sigh of relief he breathed when my
Speaker 1: evening vigil was over and the house was burned. The
Speaker 1: family also had a candelabra that was decorated with dangling
Speaker 1: glass prisms that made rainbows on the walls, which Annie
Speaker 1: just loved to look at when she grew up. And
Speaker 1: he kept this candelabra in her own helm And at
Speaker 1: one point she wrote, quote, stars and prisms. How prophetic
Speaker 1: was this baby amusement to the profession that was destined
Speaker 1: to fill my life. In eighteen eighty, Annie graduated from
Speaker 1: a Methodist preparatory school called Wilmington Conference Academy that is
Speaker 1: now Wesley College and became part of Delaware State University.
Speaker 1: On July one, After graduating, she went on to college
Speaker 1: at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. It was still fairly unusual
Speaker 1: at this point for a woman to go to college.
Speaker 1: The movement for higher education for women in the US
Speaker 1: was really just evolving. Wellesley had itself been chartered in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy, and it opened just five years before Annie enrolled.
Speaker 1: One of her professors there was physicist and a ronomer,
Speaker 1: Sarah Francis Whiting. Whiting had graduated from Ingham University, which
Speaker 1: was the first chartered university for women in the United States.
Speaker 1: She had graduated in eighteen sixty five, and in addition
Speaker 1: to teaching, she dedicated herself to opening doors for women
Speaker 1: in the sciences. To that end, she established a physics
Speaker 1: laboratory at Wellesley, which was the first such lab at
Speaker 1: a woman's college in the United States. After any jump
Speaker 1: Cannons time at Wellesley, Whiting also convinced a trustee to
Speaker 1: buy a telescope and established an observatory at the college.
Speaker 1: At the start of September of eighteen eighty two, while
Speaker 1: Cannon was studying at Wellesley, people started noticing a bright
Speaker 1: object in the sky. It was a comment and it
Speaker 1: came to be known as the Great Comment of eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. This was one of the brightest comments ever recorded,
Speaker 1: visible at night for months, and even visible during the
Speaker 1: day when it was at its brightest. Professor Whiting got
Speaker 1: Cannon and her other students up in the early morning hours,
Speaker 1: day after day to observe the comment and record its progress.
Speaker 1: After graduating from Wellesley in eight four, Cannon returned home
Speaker 1: to Dover, and over the next ten years she helped
Speaker 1: keep the family home, tutored students, played the organ at
Speaker 1: the Methodist church that she and her family attended, and traveled,
Speaker 1: and at some point she also became ill. Most sources
Speaker 1: point to scarlet fever. It's not exactly clear when this happened, though,
Speaker 1: and some accounts she's described as still being at Wesley,
Speaker 1: and others this was later. Accounts also contradict on how
Speaker 1: this illness affected her. Some describe her as losing virtually
Speaker 1: all of her hearing, and others describe her as using
Speaker 1: a hearing aid to enjoy concerts, lectures, and theater. As
Speaker 1: practical hearing aids became available in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1: There may be some clarity about all this and her
Speaker 1: feelings about it. In Canon's journals and personal papers that
Speaker 1: are archived at Harvard, but at this point there's no
Speaker 1: book length biography of her that has really explored all
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, there's also some nuance in how people
Speaker 1: describe themselves in terms of deafness, depending on like the
Speaker 1: level of hearing that they do or don't have. Some
Speaker 1: of that evolved after she was living, and that's just
Speaker 1: just uh, some incongruity and how different accounts describe her
Speaker 1: and how this affected her. One thing we do know
Speaker 1: for sure, though, is that Annie jump Canon loved to travel.
Speaker 1: In two she took a tour of Europe with her
Speaker 1: friend Sarah Potter, who had been one of her classmates
Speaker 1: at Wellesley. There are a lot of sources, like a
Speaker 1: lot a lot, that claimed that this trip was to
Speaker 1: see and photograph a solar eclipse, and while there was
Speaker 1: a total solar eclipse in April of eighteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: it was not visible from Europe at all, was visible
Speaker 1: from the South Pacific. The source for this discrepancy seems
Speaker 1: to be an obituary that conflated this trip with several
Speaker 1: other trips around the US that Cannon did take to
Speaker 1: observe eclipses. Later on, Although Cannon did not see an
Speaker 1: eclipse during this trip, she did take a lot of
Speaker 1: pictures with their camera that was a Blair camera, which
Speaker 1: was a leather covered wooden box camera that used role film.
Speaker 1: Cameras like this were pretty new at the time. George
Speaker 1: Eastman had just patented his role film camera, and the
Speaker 1: camera in which first hit the market about three years later,
Speaker 1: was later found to infringe on some of the Kodak
Speaker 1: Company's patents. Cannon's trip to Europe overlapped the four hundredth
Speaker 1: anniversary of Christopher Columbus's departure on his first voyage to
Speaker 1: the America's on August three, and by coincidence, Cannon was
Speaker 1: in Genoa, Italy, where Columbus had been born, on that anniversary,
Speaker 1: so he was having a big party and recognition in
Speaker 1: and after she returned to the United States, the World's
Speaker 1: Columbian Exhibition started in Chicago, Ine with that world spare
Speaker 1: also commemorating the fourth anniversary of Columbus's voyage. Cannon wrote
Speaker 1: a book called In the Footsteps of Columbus, which used
Speaker 1: words and pictures to not only document her trip, but
Speaker 1: also to describe how she used this camera and how
Speaker 1: it performed there. The Blair Camera Company used this booklet
Speaker 1: as a souvenir during the World's Columbian Exposition. Cannon kicked
Speaker 1: it off with a poem dedicating the book to her
Speaker 1: camera at quote, in the hope that it may be
Speaker 1: of service in proclaiming her good qualities throughout the length
Speaker 1: and breadth of Columbia. The book also ended with the
Speaker 1: Blair Camera Company's addressed so that interested readers could write
Speaker 1: for more information about the camera at in the company's
Speaker 1: other camera models. It's also pretty celebratory of Columbus and
Speaker 1: of the Catholic con west of Muslim Spain. For example,
Speaker 1: Canna describes Columbus's appearance before Queen Isabella is happening after
Speaker 1: quote the successful termination of this brilliant war. Uh A
Speaker 1: little cringe, E little cringe. Yeah. Uh. There are various
Speaker 1: cringeing bits in this book, But it kind of cracks
Speaker 1: me up that before she became one of the most
Speaker 1: famous astronomers living at the time, she basically wrote an
Speaker 1: ad for this camera company in the form of a booklet,
Speaker 1: which you can still read online today. Not long after
Speaker 1: Annie Jumpcannon returned to the United States. From this trip,
Speaker 1: her mother died at the age of fifty four, and
Speaker 1: Annie was absolutely bereft. She described herself as feeling completely
Speaker 1: lost and just looking for some kind of purpose to
Speaker 1: her life. This seems to be what prompted her to
Speaker 1: go back to school. She returned to Wellesley in and
Speaker 1: she studied X rays with Sarah Francis Whiting and also
Speaker 1: worked as a teaching assistant in physics. In Cannon entered
Speaker 1: Radcliffe College, which had been chartered the year before, is
Speaker 1: Harvard's coordinate college for women. She started out as a
Speaker 1: special student in astronomy. And this is actually a good
Speaker 1: point to take a quick sponsor break. Before we talk
Speaker 1: about Antie Jump Cannon's time at Harvard, we need to
Speaker 1: back up a little bit and talk about what she
Speaker 1: was doing and who else was working there. Physicist and
Speaker 1: astronomer Edward Charles Pickering became director of Harvard College Observatory
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy six. In eighteen seventy nine, he hired
Speaker 1: a woman named William Nutt Fleming, known as Mina, to
Speaker 1: work as a maid in his home. She had emigrated
Speaker 1: to the United States with her husband, and she needed
Speaker 1: to find work because he had abandoned her while she
Speaker 1: was pregnant. Pickering and his wife quickly realized that Fleming
Speaker 1: was very bright. She had worked as a school teacher
Speaker 1: in Scotland before getting married, so he made her a
Speaker 1: part time copyist and computer at the Observatory, a role
Speaker 1: that she filled until returning to Scotland to give birth
Speaker 1: to her son. She returned to Cambridge and a full
Speaker 1: time role at the observatory in one leaving her son
Speaker 1: with her mother and grandmother until he was about seven.
Speaker 1: There's a very widely circulated story that Pickering got so
Speaker 1: fed up with the men at the Observatory doing a
Speaker 1: bad job at their work that he said something like
Speaker 1: even my maid could do this better than you, and
Speaker 1: than just sort of spontaneously hired Fleming to do this.
Speaker 1: And it seems a little more nuanced than that, right I.
Speaker 1: I um, I have this moment of appreciation for like,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, someone recognized that this woman was very smart
Speaker 1: and they could actually use her in another role. Yeah,
Speaker 1: doesn't always happen, no, uh. And at this point, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's other other stuff relating to gender and sexism here
Speaker 1: for sure that we're going to get into. At this point,
Speaker 1: Pickering's budget at the observatory was extremely thin, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that he was trying to do was
Speaker 1: to identify the light cycles of about two hundred variable stars,
Speaker 1: and this was a really time consuming prospect. It wasn't
Speaker 1: particularly difficult work, but it did mean that somebody had
Speaker 1: to regularly observe and record the stars apparent brightness over time.
Speaker 1: It's like a long term project for each star. Since
Speaker 1: Pickering didn't have the budget to pay a staff to
Speaker 1: do this, he called on amateur astronomers to volunteer their time,
Speaker 1: and he focused on women volunteers, especially on women who
Speaker 1: had graduated from the newly established women's colleges in the
Speaker 1: United States. He thought women were particularly suited for this work,
Speaker 1: especially since it could be done from home, and he
Speaker 1: also thought that developing a group of women astronomical observers
Speaker 1: would help dispell stereotypes and criticisms of women's higher education.
Speaker 1: At the same time, astronomers at the Harvard Observatory were
Speaker 1: also studying and analyzing stellar spectra. Physician and amateur astronomer
Speaker 1: Henry Draper had been the first person to photograph a
Speaker 1: star's spectrum in eighteen seventy two. These were recorded on
Speaker 1: some glass plates as a series of black and gray lines,
Speaker 1: almost like a barcode. Each element produces its own unique
Speaker 1: spectrum when it's heated up, and these stellar spectra corresponded
Speaker 1: with the spectra of different elements. But when Draper started
Speaker 1: making these photographs, people didn't yet understand why that was,
Speaker 1: and they interpreted these stellar spectra as representing which elements
Speaker 1: were contained in each particular star. Draper died to in
Speaker 1: eight two at the age of forty five, and his wife,
Speaker 1: Anna Palmer Draper, decided to continue his work and his memory.
Speaker 1: This included donating his collection of glass plates to Harvard,
Speaker 1: as well as providing funding for the work. Unlike the
Speaker 1: observation of variable stars, which volunteers could do from home,
Speaker 1: analyzing these plates had to be done at the observatory.
Speaker 1: They were far too delicate and hard to replace to
Speaker 1: be removed. Pickering was so afraid of the plate collection
Speaker 1: being destroyed in a fire that he had a specially built,
Speaker 1: purportedly fireproof building just known as the Brick Building, built
Speaker 1: to house this work. Pickering again focused on hiring women
Speaker 1: to work with these glass plates. By eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: he had a staff of fourteen women who all worked
Speaker 1: under the supervision of William in a Fleming. Sometimes these
Speaker 1: were known by the pretty disparaging nickname of Pickering's harem.
Speaker 1: And in general there was a division of labor at
Speaker 1: the observatory that was based on gender. It wasn't considered
Speaker 1: appropriate for women to work during the night. I will
Speaker 1: say it was specifically not considered appropriate for like college
Speaker 1: educated in middle and upperclass white women to work during
Speaker 1: the night. There were plenty of women generally that we're
Speaker 1: working during the night. Uh, there were concerns that they
Speaker 1: were too delicate for the cold and the late hours involved,
Speaker 1: and also concerns about the delicacy of the equipment as well.
Speaker 1: So for the most part, men were making observations through telescopes,
Speaker 1: recording data and taking pictures of the stars using the
Speaker 1: observatory's equipment, and then women were cataloging these findings and
Speaker 1: analyzing the data at a pay rate of twenty five
Speaker 1: cents an hour, which was about half of what the
Speaker 1: men were making. When Annie jump Cannon's booklet on her
Speaker 1: trip to Spain and her camera at Camera was being
Speaker 1: used as a souvenir at the World's Columbian Exposition, Mina
Speaker 1: Fleming was there giving an address on women's work in astronomy.
Speaker 1: She said, in part, quote photography as applied to astronomy
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest advances which has been made
Speaker 1: in this the oldest of sciences. And this same advance
Speaker 1: has opened up a comparatively extensive field for women's work
Speaker 1: in this department. And then she ended this address by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: while we cannot maintain that in everything woman is man's equal,
Speaker 1: yet in many things her patience, perseverance, and method make
Speaker 1: her his superior. Therefore, let us hope that in astronomy,
Speaker 1: which now affords a large field for women's work and skill,
Speaker 1: she may, as has been the case in several other sciences,
Speaker 1: at least prove herself his equal. So this idea that
Speaker 1: there was women's work to be done in astronomy that
Speaker 1: was well established by the time Annie Jump Cannon started
Speaker 1: her study of the subject at Rackliffe. Essentially, especially in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, women came to these roles with
Speaker 1: the range of education and experience rants everything from an
Speaker 1: interest in astronomy and a knack for math to an
Speaker 1: advanced degree in the subject. This was typically very detailed,
Speaker 1: also very repetitive. Work involving making calculations and analyzing data,
Speaker 1: and keeping and organizing records. Women were thought to be
Speaker 1: particularly suited for this, thanks to the perceived traits that
Speaker 1: Fleming described in her address, but for most women there
Speaker 1: also was not a lot of opportunity to advance in
Speaker 1: these jobs, at least not beyond supervising other women in
Speaker 1: similar roles. It was almost taken for granted that women
Speaker 1: who were hired to work in astronomy would stay at
Speaker 1: their jobs until they got married or until they retired,
Speaker 1: whichever one came first. Annie Jump Cannon started working at
Speaker 1: the Harvard Observatory as an unpaid assistant in eight This
Speaker 1: assistant ship typically went to an exceptional astronomy student at Radcliffe.
Speaker 1: The year but four, it had gone to Henrietta Swan Levitt,
Speaker 1: whose discovery of the relationship between the luminosity and period
Speaker 1: of stars called Sephard variables allowed other astronomers to estimate
Speaker 1: stellar distances. Like Cannon, Levitt had lost much of her
Speaker 1: hearing after an illness not long after she finished her
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree. Anti Jump Cannon worked at the Harvard Observatory
Speaker 1: for the next forty five years. During that time, she
Speaker 1: discovered at least three hundred variable stars and five novae.
Speaker 1: The work she's best known for is developing the stellar
Speaker 1: classification scheme that is still in use today, and then
Speaker 1: using that scheme to classify more than three hundred thousand stars.
Speaker 1: Cannon star classification system built on the work of earlier astronomers.
Speaker 1: The first system for classifying stars based on their spectra
Speaker 1: was developed by Father Pietro Angelo Seki at the Vatican Observatory.
Speaker 1: He sorted the stars into four classes. Class one included
Speaker 1: white and blue stars whose spectra had evidence of hydrogen.
Speaker 1: Yellow stars were in class two, and their spectra showed iron, calcium,
Speaker 1: and other elements. Red stars were in classes three and four,
Speaker 1: depending on exactly what was shown in their spectra. While
Speaker 1: working with Draper's glass plates and the newly created plates
Speaker 1: from the nighttime work at the Harvard Observatory, William and
Speaker 1: of Fleming expanded this classification system using letters rather than
Speaker 1: Roman numerals. Her Draper College of Stellar Spectra was published
Speaker 1: in the Annals of the Harvard Observatory in and it
Speaker 1: sorted about ten thousand stars into fifteen different classes. Her
Speaker 1: system ultimately grew to include the classes designated by the
Speaker 1: letters A through Q, and it was based on the
Speaker 1: strength of the stars hydrogen lines, so A type stars
Speaker 1: had the most hydrogen, be the second most hyrogen, and
Speaker 1: so on. Meanwhile, Antonio Marie, niece of Henry Draper, also
Speaker 1: joined the observatory in and she created a system as well,
Speaker 1: using Roman numerals one through two with three subdivisions. This
Speaker 1: was clunky and Flemings and Marie's systems were just two
Speaker 1: of many classification systems that were in use in the
Speaker 1: world's observatories. Fleming was named Curator of Astronomical Photographs at
Speaker 1: Harvard at the end of eight and not long after that,
Speaker 1: Cannon started streamlining and simplifying the two stellar classification systems
Speaker 1: that were being used at the observatory. She kept some
Speaker 1: of Fleming's alphabetical categories, combining or eliminating others while incorporating
Speaker 1: some of Marie's ordering. Cannon placed class O, which sewed
Speaker 1: strong helium lines, at the top of the list, and
Speaker 1: from there she ordered the stars by their color from
Speaker 1: blue through white and yellow to orange and red, which
Speaker 1: also corresponded to their temperature from hottest to coldest. This
Speaker 1: became the basic version of the scheme that is still
Speaker 1: used today, with the stars being in type O, B, A, F, G, K,
Speaker 1: M plus P for planetary nebulas and Q for unusual stars.
Speaker 1: That's the mnemonic that's often said as ol be a
Speaker 1: fine girl, kiss me. Cannon became extraordinarily skilled at classifying stars,
Speaker 1: looking at the lines on glass plates through a loop.
Speaker 1: She could classify about three stars a minute, which was
Speaker 1: about as long as it took assistance to prepare the
Speaker 1: plate and write down her notes. As she described it quote,
Speaker 1: it was almost as if the distant stars had really
Speaker 1: acquired speech and were able to tell of their constitution
Speaker 1: and physical condition. Cannon's description of other astronomical phenomena were
Speaker 1: similarly lyrical. Around the same time she was working out
Speaker 1: this classification system, she went to Virginia Beach to observe
Speaker 1: the May nine hundred total solar eclipse, and her words
Speaker 1: quote under the falls of Niagara on the top of
Speaker 1: Vesuvius had before seemed to me to be the times
Speaker 1: of my life when I was nearest to the forces
Speaker 1: of nature. But those experiences were nothing to this. One
Speaker 1: more thought came suddenly, just before totality, that the human
Speaker 1: mind had, after all learned to predict this phenomenon. In
Speaker 1: nineteen oh three, Cannon published a catalog of more than
Speaker 1: twelve hundred variable stars, with a second volume following four
Speaker 1: years later, and in the International Union for Cooperation in
Speaker 1: Solar Research adopted Cannons classification system, known then as the
Speaker 1: Harvard System, as its standard. The International Astronomical Union did
Speaker 1: the same in nineteen Cannons roll with the observatory changed
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, so we will get to that after
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. Lamina Fleming died on nineteen eleven
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty four, and any jump Cannon
Speaker 1: was the obvious choice to succeed her as the curator
Speaker 1: of astronomical photographs at Harvard College Observatory, but this proved
Speaker 1: to be controversial, even though Fleming had served in that
Speaker 1: role for more than a decade. Harvard President Abbott Lawrence
Speaker 1: Lowell called her hiring under his predecessor, Charles Elliott quote anomalous.
Speaker 1: Lowell did not expect this anomaly to be repeated. He
Speaker 1: was not expecting another woman to be hired to replace her,
Speaker 1: so Pickering placed Cannon in this position anyway, although this
Speaker 1: wasn't a formal appointment through the university, so that meant
Speaker 1: her pay was lower than it would have been otherwise,
Speaker 1: and her name was not listed in the Harvard directory.
Speaker 1: As curator of Astronomical Photographs, Cannon took over work on
Speaker 1: the Henry Draper Catalog of Stellar Spectra, building on the
Speaker 1: earlier work of Mina Fleming and Antonio Marie. From nineteen
Speaker 1: eighteen to nineteen twenty four, the Harvard College Observatory published
Speaker 1: this directory in ten volumes under the names of both
Speaker 1: Annie J. Cannon and Edward C. Pickering. Over those ten volumes,
Speaker 1: the catalog described more than two hundred twenty five thousand stars,
Speaker 1: including their spectra, their positions, and their magnitudes. Cecilia Payne
Speaker 1: Gaposhkin would call this Cannon's greatest legacy to science. Cannon
Speaker 1: also maintained a card index that swelled to more than
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty thousand stars, and a collection of
Speaker 1: verse about astronomy written by such poets as Milton Longfellow
Speaker 1: and Emerson. Some of the plates in the Harvard Observatory
Speaker 1: collection had been taken at Harvard's astronomical station in Arequipa, Peru.
Speaker 1: Harvard operated this observatory as a pretty insular research station
Speaker 1: from eighteen eighty nine to ninety seven, at which point
Speaker 1: they packed it all up and relocated the whole facility
Speaker 1: and all its equipment to South Africa. Cannon spent some
Speaker 1: time at Arequipa in ninety two, when she was fifty eight,
Speaker 1: observing and photographing the stars herself at night and walking
Speaker 1: and exploring the area during the day. And a letter
Speaker 1: back to Harlow Shapley, who had replaced Edward Pickering after
Speaker 1: his death in nineteen nineteen, she wrote, quote, I expect
Speaker 1: to be an athlete when I returned to Old Cambridge
Speaker 1: for the running of the thirteen inch orchoirs, turning a
Speaker 1: heavy dome, mounting ladders big and little, all sorts of
Speaker 1: things which Mr Moonees declared I could not do, for
Speaker 1: it was not woman's work. I can do it all, however,
Speaker 1: except get good plates of faint spectra. This was just
Speaker 1: one of many trips that Cannon took while working at Harvard.
Speaker 1: In nine thirteen, she had taken some time off from
Speaker 1: the observatory to go to Europe with her sister. In ninete,
Speaker 1: she went to Catalina Island, California, to view a solar
Speaker 1: eclipse with astronomers from Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately the weather did not cooperate for that one. It
Speaker 1: was not a wasted trip, though, since Cannon also toured
Speaker 1: West Coast observatories and exchanged information with other astronomers while
Speaker 1: she was out there. She took another trip to Poughkeepsie,
Speaker 1: New York, to observe a solar eclipse in January, and
Speaker 1: she also attended every meeting of the International Astronomical Union
Speaker 1: that was held during her career, with the exception of
Speaker 1: the one in nineteen two. She had been invited to
Speaker 1: it well in advance, but since it was being held
Speaker 1: in Rome and she was at the time working in Peru,
Speaker 1: it was just not feasible. She corresponded frequently with other attendees, though,
Speaker 1: and discussions and potential revisions of her classification system were
Speaker 1: on the agenda for that year's meeting. Cannon was also
Speaker 1: being honored for her work as an astronomer. Her first
Speaker 1: honorary doctorate came from the University of Delaware in nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: Another followed from Groningen University in nineteen twenty one. In
Speaker 1: ninety three, the League of Women Voters named her one
Speaker 1: of the twelve Greatest American Women, and in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: five she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Also
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty five, she became the first woman to
Speaker 1: be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.
Speaker 1: She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wellesley on May
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of that year as well. She had to
Speaker 1: delay a trip to England to attend the i AU
Speaker 1: meeting being held in Cambridge so that she could accept
Speaker 1: it in person. She was awarded honorary degrees from Oglethorpe
Speaker 1: and Mount Holyoke in the nineteen thirties as well. In
Speaker 1: some cases, though the honors that Cannon was awarded work
Speaker 1: conditional or they didn't happen at all. She was made
Speaker 1: an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen because women were not admitted as full members, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen three the National Academy of Sciences started discussing
Speaker 1: inducting more women into that academy, but Canon was passed
Speaker 1: over because Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins objected to her deafness.
Speaker 1: There has also been some discussion of whether Annie Jump
Speaker 1: Canon or Henrietta sun Levitt should have been considered to
Speaker 1: take Edward Pickering's place after his death, and while it's
Speaker 1: true that neither was considered because of their sex, and
Speaker 1: if their sex was not an issue, may not have
Speaker 1: been because of their hearing loss, it also does not
Speaker 1: appear that it was a role that either of them
Speaker 1: considered for themselves. In ninete, Cecilia Payne, who would later
Speaker 1: be Cecilia Payanka Poshkin, joined the Harvard College Observatory, and,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in our episode on her, she built
Speaker 1: on the cataloging classification work that Annie Jump Cannon and
Speaker 1: other women at the university had done to conclude that
Speaker 1: all the stars have about the same elements and about
Speaker 1: the same proportions, and that the different elements that show
Speaker 1: up in their spectral lines come from the star's temperature,
Speaker 1: not their actual composition. In Cannon moved into a home
Speaker 1: across from the observatory, which she nicknamed Star Cottage, which
Speaker 1: is possibly the most charming thing ever. Her widowed half sister,
Speaker 1: Ella Cannon Marshall, had been living with Canon before this
Speaker 1: point and shared the home at Star Cottage as well.
Speaker 1: Cannon hosted frequent visitors including children from the area who
Speaker 1: she loved to entertain with parties. She also kept doing
Speaker 1: all of the other things she loved, including going to
Speaker 1: lectures and concerts and traveling, and she kept finding new
Speaker 1: stars to classify, focusing on fainter and fainter stars as
Speaker 1: technology made it possible to capture their spectra accurately. In
Speaker 1: one Cannon was awarded the April Gold Medal for Discoveries
Speaker 1: and Astronomical Physics from the National Academy of Sciences. She
Speaker 1: was the first woman to be so awarded. In two,
Speaker 1: she was one of two final recipients of the thousand
Speaker 1: dollar Ellen Richards Research Prize that was awarded by the
Speaker 1: Association to aid scientific research by women. Having granted this
Speaker 1: award for this last time, the association then disbanded. Quote
Speaker 1: since women are given opportunities in scientific research on equality
Speaker 1: with men and gain recognition for their achievements. Okay, with
Speaker 1: the benefit of hindsight, this is an extremely optimistic statement.
Speaker 1: That's the kindest possible way to put it. Cannon decided
Speaker 1: to use her prize money to endow the Anti J.
Speaker 1: Cannon Prize, to be awarded through the American Astronomical Society.
Speaker 1: In recognition of women astronomers. It first recipient was Cecilia Paanapashkin.
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen thirty four, and it is still
Speaker 1: awarded today in recognition of female astronomers from North America
Speaker 1: in recognition for work done within five years of earning
Speaker 1: their PhD. Among the many other pieces of this story
Speaker 1: that strike me in various ways the fact that in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two it was possible to endow an ongoing
Speaker 1: award with a thousand dollars like she knew it was
Speaker 1: going to take some time for it to build up
Speaker 1: enough interest to be able to sustain itself, but she
Speaker 1: was also really hoping she would actually get to see
Speaker 1: someone be awarded it during her lifetime. UH. And that
Speaker 1: did happen, but at first it was not given out
Speaker 1: all that regularly, and the prize was very small as
Speaker 1: it was trying to sustain itself. UH. In nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: Cannon was named the William Cranch Bond astra Honomer and
Speaker 1: Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard, and at that same
Speaker 1: time Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin was also named Phillips Astronomer, Although
Speaker 1: this didn't really affect Cannon's role at the Observatory, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't a teaching role, it did mean she was
Speaker 1: finally officially a Harvard professor. It was also apparently still
Speaker 1: pretty anomalous for a woman to be offered such a position,
Speaker 1: because the certificate that she got was addressed Dear Sir
Speaker 1: Annie Jump. Cannon retired from the Harvard Observatory two years
Speaker 1: later in nineteen forty, but she kept working until shortly
Speaker 1: before her death on April thirteenth, ninety one, at the
Speaker 1: age of seventy seven. Obituaries written by other astronomers described
Speaker 1: her as deeply beloved by her friends and colleagues, as
Speaker 1: well as being truly dedicated to her work and just
Speaker 1: masterful at it. Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin wrote, quote, it is
Speaker 1: nearly impossible for us to imagine the astronomical world without her.
Speaker 1: Of late years, she has been not only a vital
Speaker 1: living person, she has been an institution already in our
Speaker 1: school days. She was a legend. The scientific world has
Speaker 1: lost something besides a great scientist. In nine a new
Speaker 1: volume of the Henry Draper Catalog was published, and this
Speaker 1: was the Annie J. Cannon Memorial volume, and it brought
Speaker 1: the total number of stars detailed in the catalog to
Speaker 1: nine thousand, eighty three. World War Two was underway by
Speaker 1: the time Annie jump Canon died, and towards the end
Speaker 1: of her life, she was quoted as saying, quote, in
Speaker 1: these days of great trouble and unrest, it is good
Speaker 1: to have something outside our own planet, something comforting to
Speaker 1: troubled minds. Let people look to the stars for comfort
Speaker 1: and find solace as others have. Hers is is a
Speaker 1: one of those simultaneously uplifting and amazing and very frustrating stories. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's all true. Uh. I have a bit of listener
Speaker 1: mail to take us out. Uh. I'm sure we will
Speaker 1: talk some more about our feelings about Annie jump Canon
Speaker 1: and are behind the scenes on Friday. This is from Joanna.
Speaker 1: Joanna writes, greetings from London. I'm a few weeks behind
Speaker 1: on the podcast and today I listened to the episode
Speaker 1: on Daphne de Mauria. I was so surprised to see
Speaker 1: the episode on her, as I only recently learned her
Speaker 1: name after visiting the town she used to live in
Speaker 1: in Cornwall called Foi. My husband and I are Canadians
Speaker 1: living in the UK for a temporary post, and we
Speaker 1: went to foe because my husband's grandfather had a summer
Speaker 1: cottage there. As we were walking around to find the
Speaker 1: ferry to take us across the estuary, I came across
Speaker 1: a large bird sculpture. Bird watching is one of my hobbies,
Speaker 1: so naturally I was attracted to the sculpture and I
Speaker 1: was surprised when I read the plaque. UH. The plaque
Speaker 1: says Threstle's Rook with a Book. Rook with a Book
Speaker 1: celebrates author Daphne du Maries legacy, inspiration and love of Foey,
Speaker 1: where she lived, and then it goes on to talk
Speaker 1: a bit more about Daphne to Maria. The email continues
Speaker 1: while I enjoyed the movie The Birds. My brother is
Speaker 1: the Hitchcock fan, and I wasn't sure if he knew
Speaker 1: about it being based on du Maria's work, and this
Speaker 1: seemingly random place in the world suddenly became known UH
Speaker 1: in the last few months because of my husband's connection
Speaker 1: to and fond memories of the town, and now this
Speaker 1: connection one of my brother's favorite directors. I've attached a
Speaker 1: photo of the sculpture, as well as a few other
Speaker 1: photos of the area to give you an idea as
Speaker 1: to why she might have loved it so much. I
Speaker 1: sure did as an aside. I happened to visit the
Speaker 1: place where The Birds was filmed at my brother's recommendation
Speaker 1: when I was in the area on a work trip once.
Speaker 1: The area does actually look similar to Foey, although perhaps
Speaker 1: a bit more flat land. There apparently was a bookstore
Speaker 1: that used to always keep all her works in stock,
Speaker 1: but fortunately the couple that ran it retired to the
Speaker 1: store is closed, and I don't know if the new
Speaker 1: owners are keeping up that practice. I didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to go to the bookstore to find out, but
Speaker 1: now that I've heard the episode, some of her novels
Speaker 1: really intrigued me, and I'll look for some of the
Speaker 1: titles to read. I always enjoy hearing letters from others
Speaker 1: when they have these interesting connections, and I thought I
Speaker 1: would share mine with you, as well as some photos,
Speaker 1: just in case you'd be interested to see where she
Speaker 1: lived for so long, at least the area. Many of
Speaker 1: the homes on the hills are not open to the public,
Speaker 1: as the staircases to reach them are locked, so I
Speaker 1: imagine we couldn't really have seen her home anyway. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your show. I always enjoy it and recommend it
Speaker 1: to my high school students. Joanna, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this email and these pictures. Joanna, I don't think
Speaker 1: we ever actually mentioned the name of the town of Foe,
Speaker 1: but like that was sort of the central place. Uh
Speaker 1: Menabilly was a couple of miles off from there. Um
Speaker 1: one of the homes that that they lived in was
Speaker 1: like sort of right across the river from the town Opper,
Speaker 1: so that was sort of a focal point of her upbringing.
Speaker 1: And these pictures, especially the bird statue, I can totally
Speaker 1: see how that bird statue would immediately grab somebody's attention
Speaker 1: because it is a statue of a bird um with
Speaker 1: one sort of talent on a book um which you know,
Speaker 1: from very far away. If you were not sure where
Speaker 1: you were, you might think that it was some kind
Speaker 1: of an Edgar Allen post statue, but it is not.
Speaker 1: So thank you again for the email in the pictures.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast, we're at History Podcast that I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio dot com and we're all over social media
Speaker 1: at miss in History, so that's where you'll find our
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