Vera Gushee | |
|---|---|
 Vera Gushee, from the 1916 yearbook of Smith College | |
| Born | February 7, 1894 Cincinnatus, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 27, 1937 (age 43) New York, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Astronomer, college professor |
Vera Marie Gushee (February 7, 1894 – October 27, 1937) was an American astronomer and a professor at Smith College.
Gushee was born in Cincinnatus, New York, the daughter of Walter E. Gushee and Helen M. Hatch Gushee. Both of her parents were from Maine; her father was a school superintendent in Massachusetts. [1] She graduated from Smith College, and earned a master's degree at the University of Chicago. [2] [3] She did not pursue a doctoral degree, explaining in 1933 that "The efforts I have made deliberately are towards a greater broadening of my intellectual background than I could get by aiming toward a Ph.D. in Astronomy." [4]
Gushee was an assistant professor of astronomy at Smith College in the 1920s. [5] She also taught at Wellesley College, [6] [7] and lectured at Harvard University. [4] [8] She attended the American Astronomical Society meeting in 1920. [9] She was part of a team of astronomers who photographed a total solar eclipse in 1918, from Matheson, Colorado. [7] [10]
At Smith College, Gushee played harp with the Phaneian Harp Ensemble. [11] She spent some summers teaching at the Music Box, an arts school in Cummington, Massachusetts, which was founded by her Smith College friend Katherine Frazier. [12] She also raised funds for Frazier's school. [13]
Gushee died in 1937, at the age of 43, in New York City. [3] Her photograph, and a replica of one of her dresses, was part of an exhibit at the University of Chicago Library in 2023, titled "Capturing the Stars: The Untold History of Women at Yerkes Observatory". [19] [20]
Yerkes Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The observatory was operated by the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from its founding in 1897 until 2018. Ownership was transferred to the non-profit Yerkes Future Foundation (YFF) in May 2020, which began millions of dollars of restoration and renovation of the historic building and grounds. Yerkes re-opened for public tours and programming in May 2022. The April 2024 issue of National Geographic magazine featured a story about the Observatory and ongoing work to restore it to relevance for astronomy, public science engagement and exploring big ideas through art, science, culture and landscape. The observatory offers tickets to programs and tours on its website.
Annie Jump Cannon was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types. She was nearly deaf throughout her career after 1893, as a result of scarlet fever. She was a suffragist and a member of the National Women's Party.
Vera Florence Cooper Rubin was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves. These results were later confirmed over subsequent decades. Her work on the galaxy rotation problem was cited by others as evidence for the existence of dark matter. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is named in her honor.
Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS (née Peachey; 12 August 1919 – 5 April 2020) was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influential B2FH paper. During the 1960s and 1970s she worked on galaxy rotation curves and quasars, discovering the most distant astronomical object then known. In the 1980s and 1990s she helped develop and utilise the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Burbidge was also well known for her work opposing discrimination against women in astronomy.
Otto Lyudvigovich Struve was a Ukrainian-American astronomer of Baltic German origin. Otto was the descendant of famous astronomers of the Struve family; he was the son of Ludwig Struve, grandson of Otto Wilhelm von Struve and great-grandson of Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve. He was also the nephew of Karl Hermann Struve.
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI that was later known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet" in her honor. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Christian VIII of Denmark in 1848. Mitchell was the first internationally known woman to work as both a professional astronomer and a professor of astronomy after accepting a position at Vassar College in 1865. She was also the first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Otto Wilhelm von Struve was a Russian astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is normally given as Otto Vasil'evich Struve. He headed the Pulkovo Observatory between 1862 and 1889 and was a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Karl Hermann von Struve was a Baltic German astronomer. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as German Ottovich Struve or German Ottonovich Struve.
Clinton Banker Ford was an American investor, musician and amateur astronomer specializing in the observation of variable stars.
Nancy Grace Roman was an American astronomer who made important contributions to stellar classification and motions. The first female executive at NASA, Roman served as NASA's first Chief of Astronomy throughout the 1960s and 1970s, establishing her as one of the "visionary founders of the US civilian space program".
The University of Illinois Astronomical Observatory, located at 901 S. Mathews Avenue in Urbana, Illinois, on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, was built in 1896, and was designed by Charles A. Gunn. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 6, 1986, and on December 20, 1989, was designated a National Historic Landmark.
Maud Worcester Makemson was an American astronomer, a specialist on archaeoastronomy, and director of Vassar Observatory.
Nan Dieter-Conklin, also known as Nannielou Reier Hepburn Dieter Conklin, was an American radio astronomer.
Alice Hall Farnsworth was an American astronomer. She was director of John Payson Williston Observatory at Mount Holyoke College from 1936 until her retirement in 1957.
Barbara Mary Middlehurst was a Welsh astronomer.
Attilio Colacevich was an Italian astronomer.
Emilia Pauline Pisani (Lee) Belserene was an American astronomer specializing in the observation of variable stars and recognized as an expert on RR Lyrae variable stars. She became known for her work as the director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket and for her biographical writings on Maria Mitchell.
Ferdinand Ellerman was an American astronomer and photographer. He spent a good part of his career as an associate of the solar astronomer George E. Hale, and is known for his study of a phenomenon in the solar chromosphere later dubbed Ellerman bombs.
Katherine Maria Frazier, also seen as Katharine Frazier, was an American musician and arts administrator. In 1923 she opened a theatre in Cummington, Massachusetts, which in 1927 became part of Frazier's Cummington School of the Arts, offering summer residencies, camps, and a performance venue for visual artists, musicians, and writers.