Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science
An Astronomer Among the American Romantics
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Professor, astronomer, tourist attraction. Maria Mitchell held many titles, but she liked tourist attraction least. Soon after discovering her first comet in 1847, the American astronomer became a sought-after celebrity. Her popularity subsided when she moved away from her native Nantucket, Mass., and as men came to dominate science.
This book chronicles the astronomer’s ascent to fame during the mid-1800s. During her era, girls and women of a certain class were encouraged to become educated. Science was ordered, and because women were near the bottom of the social hierarchy, “studying nature’s hierarchies could only keep them in their place,” writes Bergland, a professor at SimmonsCollege in Boston.