|
3b. Pickering’s harem
A postdoctoral student of the
eminent astronomer Vera Rubin once remarked: “American astronomy
became preeminent because of two discoveries: Hale discovered
money and Pickering discovered women” (Rubin, 2005). Pickering
recruited up to 40 women to work for him to reduce the stellar
data from the large number of photographic plates accumulated by
the Harvard photographic surveys (figure 4). These women worked
at various times from 1885 to 1920 and in the beginning were
paid 25 cents an hour. They labored seven hours a day for six
days a week receiving $10.50 pay per week with a month’s
vacation a year. The work was too tedious and paid too little
to attract any men (Johnson, 2005).
Figure 4. Pickering’s harem.
From Trimble (2000).
These human computers were
referred to as “Pickering’s Harem.” They included Annie Jump
Cannon (1863-1941)4,
Wilhelmina Fleming (1857-1911)5,
Antonia Maury (1866-1952)
6, and
Henrietta Leavitt, all of whom became famous in their own right,
though the credit bestowed on them was certainly less than they
deserved in their lifetimes. When Henrietta Leavitt was
appointed to the permanent staff at Harvard College Observatory
in 1902, she was paid a salary of 30 cents per hour, the
equivalent $6.65 per hour in 2005 (Rubin, 2005). Pickering
himself only earned $3400 annually, and he worked all day at his
administrative duties and frequently at night on observing
projects. It is estimated he only earned $2 per hour. From all
indications, the women were generally happy in their jobs,
though they would have liked better pay. They were treated with
respect by Pickering, and he tried to make their jobs
interesting and stimulating (Johnson, 2005).
Fleming became the curator of
Harvard’s photographic plate collection, and she was in charge
of classifying stars according to their spectra. Fleming,
Cannon, and Maury worked on the Henry Draper Catalog. They all
worked in the same small second floor room at the Harvard
College Observatory. This room is still intact, though somewhat
modernized. It is not marked by a plaque.
|
|
3c. Leavitt’s early career 1894-1908
When Leavitt first started working at the
observatory as a volunteer, she was assigned the task of
recording the magnitude of stars by using a microscope and
measuring the size of the stars’ disks on the photographic
plates. The plates were large negatives with black star images
on a grey white background. She compared the star sizes against
those whose magnitudes had already been determined. Leavitt was
also asked to look for variable stars. This was done by making
a positive image of a plate taken of the same star field at a
different time. This positive image was then exactingly aligned
with the negative plate, and those stars whose brightness was
constant canceled out while those stars whose brightness had
changed, stood out (Jones, 2005; Leavitt, 1908). Leavitt had a
talent for this type of work and did it religiously until 1896
when she left for two years of traveling in Europe.
Leavitt conferred briefly with Pickering when she
returned from Europe and promised to finish a manuscript on her
work, but she moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, where her father was
the minister of a church. She worked as an art assistant at
Beloit College. In early 1902 Leavitt wrote Pickering asking if she
could resume her work from Wisconsin and asked that her
notebooks be sent to her for her to complete the manuscript she
had left unfinished. She mentioned she had health problems and
had trouble with her hearing. She also noted cold weather
aggravated her problems and requested Pickering’s help in
finding an astronomy position in a warm location. Pickering
promptly offered her a full time job at 30 cents an hour because
of the quality of her work. Due to unexplained family problems
and side trips, Leavitt did not arrive for work at Harvard until
August 1902 and then was only able to work 4 hours a day (Jones,
2005). Leavitt did not become a permanent member
of the Harvard College Observatory staff until the summer of
1903 when she arranged for her permanent move from Beloit to
Cambridge. In 1904 she discovered many variable stars in the
Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This so stimulated her that she
began to search for variable stars with increased zeal and
discovered hundreds of them in the Magellanic Clouds. She lived
with her uncle Erasmus in a large villa near the observatory.
Periodically her results were reported in various Harvard
publications (Table 1). She often went to Beloit for Christmas
and frequently took winter voyages.
|
