by Heather Smith

Created on: April 24, 2009   Last Updated: April 27, 2009

Maria Mitchell's seventy years of life were marked by one extraordinary achievement after another. Born on August 1, 1818 to William Mitchell and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, Maria's life began with one major advantage, her family was Quaker. One of the beliefs held by Quakers was the importance of equality among the sexes, at least as far education went. Maria was given the same education that the boys received. Growing up in Nantucket, Maria was instilled with a great sense of independence. Many of the men on the island were sailors who left for long stretches of time. The women were left to tend to affairs of the family. As for her interest in Astronomy, her father William, from whom she received her first telescope, both influenced and instructed her.

Maria, at the age of twelve, helped her father calculate the precise moment of the annular eclipse. By fourteen, she assisted sailors with navigational computations. Once her father's school, where she had received most her education, closed, she began to attend Cyrus Peirce's school for young ladies. There she worked as a teaching assistant until she opened a school of her own 1835. In 1836, she became the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum.

Recognition and fame came in October of 1847, when Maria, using a telescope outside her father's store, discovered a comet. She was the second woman to ever discover a comet, the first being Caroline Herschel. Maria received an award from King Frederick VI of Denmark and the comet was named "Miss Mitchell's Comet." One year later, she became the first female member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1850, she became the first female member of the American Association of Advancement of Science.

Maria went on to have a remarkable career; she worked for the Nautical Almanac Office, traveled Europe with Nathaniel Hawthorne, and in 1865 became the first ever professor of astronomy at Vassar college. While at Vassar, she fought and succeeded in having her salary increased to match that of her male counterparts. She also protested slavery and supported women's suffrage, co-founding the American Association for the Advancement of Women.

On June, 28, 1889, Maria Mitchell passed away. She was seventy years old. She was buried next to her father at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Nantucket. She is the inspiration behind the Maria Mitchell Association, which works to keep sciences alive on the island. Their observatory is named after her. In addition to the observatory, a WWII liberty ship and a crater on the moon have also been named in her honor. She also was inducted, posthumously, into the U.S National Women's Hall of fame.

Sources: Maira Mitchell Association http://www.mmo.org/maria-mitchell/biography.html

Women in History http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/mitc-mar.htm

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Mitchell

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