Margaretta Palmer

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Margaretta Palmer
Palmer in 1918
Born(1862-08-29)August 29, 1862
Branford, Connecticut, U.S.
DiedJanuary 30, 1924(1924-01-30) (aged 61)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
EducationVassar College
Yale University
Scientific career
InstitutionsYale University Observatory

Margaretta Palmer (1862–1924) was an American astronomer, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in astronomy.[1][2] She worked at the Yale University Observatory at a time when woman were frequently hired as assistant astronomers, but when most of these women had only a high school education, so Palmer's advanced degree made her unusual for her time.[3]

Early life and education

Palmer was born to a farming family in Branford, Connecticut on August 29, 1862,[4] and completed a bachelor's degree at Vassar College in 1887. At Yale, she took two classes in astronomy with Maria Mitchell, although her graduation address concerned Greek tragedy.[5] After graduating, she worked as an assistant to Mitchell and as a Latin instructor at Vassar for two years.[6][2][5]

In 1889 she was hired by the Yale University Observatory, and in 1892 she was admitted to graduate study at Yale University.[5] Her 1894 doctorate was from the mathematics department at Yale, but its subject was astronomy, as it concerned the calculation of the orbit of a comet C/1847 T1 discovered in 1847 by Maria Mitchell. Palmer's thesis noted that the comets she chose to study were chosen partially because they had been discovered by women.[7] She was one of the first seven women to earn a doctorate at Yale. It has been suggested that she was "the first woman ever to earn a doctorate" in astronomy,[1] although fellow astronomer Dorothea Klumpke earned a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris in 1893.[8] It would be over 30 years before another woman, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, became the first doctorate in astronomy at Radcliffe College.[2]

During this period, Palmer also determined the orbits of three other comets, and collected a large set of observations of the moons of Jupiter. However, she was unable to complete the extensive calculation of the orbits of the moons because of a "long and serious illness".[2][5]

Later career

Palmer remained at the Yale Observatory for the rest of her life.

star catalogs, which she announced in an incomplete form in a 1917 publication.[5] For most of her time at Yale she was a research assistant, with some additional part-time work as a cataloguer in the Yale University Library, but she became an instructor at Yale in 1923.[4] In 1924, with Frank Schlesinger, she published another pioneering star catalog, of the distances to 1870 stars calculated by Schlesinger's use of the principle of parallax.[2][5]

Personal life

Palmer was

Episcopalian
, and also published two books on religious topics, Teachers' Notes on Our Book of Worship (Young Churchman Co., 1914) and Teachers' Notes on the Church Catechism (Morehouse, 1918). She was a member of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce.[9] Palmer died of her injuries on January 30, 1924, two weeks after an automobile accident, in New Haven, Connecticut.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ a b "Biographies of Yale's First Women Ph.D.'s", The Yale Women Faculty Forum, Yale University, retrieved 2019-05-08
  2. ^ a b c d e Hoffleit, Dorrit (December 1983), "Maria Mitchell's famous students" (PDF), CSWP Gazette, 3 (4), Committee on the Status of Women in Physics of the American Physical Society: 1–4
  3. ISBN 9780801825095
  4. ^ a b c "Margaretta Palmer, Ph.D. 1894" (PDF), Obituary Record of Yale Graduates, 1923–1924, Bulletin of Yale University, 20th Series, 22: 1212, August 1, 1924
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Johnson, Colton (2008), "Margaretta Palmer", Vassar Encyclopedia, retrieved 2019-05-08
  6. ^ a b Hoffleit, D. (2014). Palmer, Margaretta. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1048
  7. ISSN 1364-503X
    .
  8. ISBN 978-1-4419-9917-7
    , retrieved 2024-03-06
  9. ^ "Vassar Quarterly 1 May 1924 — Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive". newspaperarchives.vassar.edu. Retrieved 2024-03-07.

External links

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