Sobel, Dava (Author)
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomyA New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science FridayNominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award"A joy to read.” —The Wall Street Journal In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
...MoreReview Naomi Pasachoff (2017) Review of "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 267-276).
Review Sara J. Schechner (2018) Review of "The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars". Journal for the History of Astronomy (pp. 117-119).
Article
Lindsay Smith Zrull;
(2021)
Women in Glass: Women at the Harvard Observatory during the Era of Astronomical Glass Plate Photography, 1875–1975
(/isis/citation/CBB136067482/)
Article
Owen Gingerich;
David DeVorkin;
James Evans;
Richard L Kremer;
(2024)
Ad astra per aspera: From the Sewers of Kansas to Harvard College Observatory
(/isis/citation/CBB125804751/)
Article
Clabby, Catherine;
(2013)
A New Looking Glass: Historic Harvard Plates
(/isis/citation/CBB001320842/)
Article
Geoff Barker;
(2009)
‘Carte du Ciel’: Sydney Observatory's Role in the International Project to Photograph the Heavens
(/isis/citation/CBB980640932/)
Article
Pearson, John C.;
Orchiston, Wayne;
(2008)
The 40-foot Solar Eclipse Camera of the Lick Observatory
(/isis/citation/CBB001034763/)
Book
Hughes, Stefan;
(2013)
Catchers of the Light: The Forgotten Lives of the Men and Women Who First Photographed the Heavens: Their True Tales of Adventure, Adversity & Triumph
(/isis/citation/CBB001451109/)
Thesis
Jennifer Elizabeth Woodman;
(2016)
Stellar Works: Searching for the Lives of Women in Science
(/isis/citation/CBB980948547/)
Book
Donovan Moore;
(2020)
What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
(/isis/citation/CBB733596717/)
Article
Lamy, Jérõme;
(2009)
The Role of the Conferences and the Bulletin in the Modification of the Practices of the Carte du Ciel Project at the End of the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001034795/)
Article
Bonifácio, Vitor;
(2011)
Early Astronomical Sequential Photography, 1873--1923
(/isis/citation/CBB001221520/)
Article
Dietrich Lemke;
(2018)
Verständliche Astronomie aus Heidelberg - Von Max Wolfs Himmelsbildern zum Haus der Astronomie
(/isis/citation/CBB902725342/)
Article
Bonitàcio, Vitor;
Malaquias, Isabel;
Fernandes, Joǎo;
(2008)
Ernesto Vasconcellos' Astronomia Photographica: The Earliest Popular Book on Astronomical Photography?
(/isis/citation/CBB001034772/)
Thesis
Samantha Michelle Thompson;
(2019)
The Carnegie Image Tube Committee and the Development of Electronic Imaging Devices in Astronomy, 1953-1976
(/isis/citation/CBB169946259/)
Article
Marco Arturo Moreno Corral;
William J. Schuster;
(2020)
The Mexican astrographic catalogue and Carte du Ciel Project
(/isis/citation/CBB455645836/)
Article
Hoffleit, Dorrit;
(1991)
The evolution of the Henry Draper Memorial
(/isis/citation/CBB000055541/)
Article
Hanna Rose Shell;
(January 2020)
High Altitude Observatory: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
(/isis/citation/CBB374077792/)
Chapter
Kidwell, Peggy Aldrich;
(1992)
Harvard astronomers and World War II--Disruption and opportunity
(/isis/citation/CBB000029128/)
Article
Stephens, Carlene E.;
(1987)
Partners in time: William Bond & Son of Boston and the Harvard College Observatory
(/isis/citation/CBB000042435/)
Article
Plotkin, Howard;
(1980)
Edward C. Pickering's diary of a visit to the Harvard College Observatory, 14 November 1861
(/isis/citation/CBB000000325/)
Article
Bartolucci, Jorge;
(2005)
Developing Science in Developing Countries: The Harvard College Observatory and the Establishment of Modern Astrophysics in Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB000660391/)
Be the first to comment!