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Female Firsts: Maria Mitchell · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told your protection of I Heart Radio, and it's
0:18
Speaker 1: time for another female first, which means we are thrilled
0:22
Speaker 1: and delighted to once again be joined by our good
0:24
Speaker 1: friend eves Hi. Eves Hi, it's always so wonderful to
0:29
Speaker 1: have you on, and we always have such fun conversations
0:33
Speaker 1: right before we start recording. Yeah, we do. And I
0:36
Speaker 1: feel like it's my fault often for taking us on
0:38
Speaker 1: those tangents, because it's nice to catch up because this
0:42
Speaker 1: is often the only time I get to see y'all. Right,
0:45
Speaker 1: So yeah, we love a good tangent. And we got
0:48
Speaker 1: to talk about like lime wire and body order. We
0:53
Speaker 1: looked down about like six different holes here are trying
0:56
Speaker 1: to catch up because we jumped from subject to subject.
0:59
Speaker 1: We're so good at that, we are we are. I
1:03
Speaker 1: am so so excited about the topic you brought today.
1:07
Speaker 1: Before we get into it, I wanted to ask Um
1:10
Speaker 1: or either of you growing up, did you ever have
1:12
Speaker 1: periods where you were really interested in space? Yes, so
1:21
Speaker 1: take the floor here direct, No, that's usually me. I'm like, no, thanks, Yes,
1:27
Speaker 1: I really really one of the one trips I don't know.
1:30
Speaker 1: Was this everybody in our generation we would go to
1:34
Speaker 1: the planetarium from like kindergarten until about third grade. Every
1:38
Speaker 1: field trip we had maybe the fourth grade, we would
1:41
Speaker 1: go to a planetarium. And unfortunately a majority of our
1:44
Speaker 1: planetariums have been shut down or close. I think there's
1:47
Speaker 1: one um tell Us Museum which is above Cartersville here
1:52
Speaker 1: in Georgia, which is pretty far away from us. But
1:55
Speaker 1: I loved going to that. I love going to the Imax.
1:59
Speaker 1: This is before I'm max became part of a theater. Man,
2:01
Speaker 1: I'm really dating myself. I'm right there with the Samantha okay.
2:07
Speaker 1: And then then going into the planetarium to watch the sky,
2:11
Speaker 1: which we were inside the dome and they would do
2:13
Speaker 1: this like picture and I was fascinated. I loved it.
2:16
Speaker 1: Now everything for me had everything to do with the aesthetics,
2:19
Speaker 1: so it wasn't necessarily the science part. So I just
2:22
Speaker 1: wanted to see the stars. I wanted to be under
2:24
Speaker 1: the stars. Uh. The other night, as in fact, we
2:27
Speaker 1: had the blood moon come through and the lunar eclipse.
2:30
Speaker 1: Did you all watch that? I did not. Inside I
2:37
Speaker 1: felt before, during and after, so I just didn't. I
2:42
Speaker 1: didn't watch it. So I went to see the first
2:45
Speaker 1: part of the eclipse and it was beautiful. And then uh,
2:48
Speaker 1: my partner, who actually had a really nice camera, started
2:50
Speaker 1: taking pictures of the blood moon and it was gorgeous,
2:53
Speaker 1: so we got to see all of that. But yes,
2:56
Speaker 1: watching it and seeing it and being fascinated by was
2:58
Speaker 1: out there, it's definitely thing I can about the science
3:01
Speaker 1: not so much. Yeah, I can relate to that, Samantha,
3:05
Speaker 1: I because I did love planetariums too, but it was
3:08
Speaker 1: just like it was more so the feeling of being
3:11
Speaker 1: inside a dark space that it wasn't an experience that
3:15
Speaker 1: I had every day as a child. So I like
3:17
Speaker 1: that element of it. And then the displays that the
3:20
Speaker 1: places we went to or the planetariums would put on,
3:22
Speaker 1: with the the nice narration, with the soothing voice happening.
3:27
Speaker 1: And I don't think I had as much wonder in
3:30
Speaker 1: awe about what it all really meant, or the scale
3:33
Speaker 1: of things or the grandness, or I didn't have any
3:35
Speaker 1: deep philosophical ideas or even think that it would be
3:39
Speaker 1: something that I would be interested in professionally or career wise.
3:44
Speaker 1: And I think that's like science was never that element
3:48
Speaker 1: for me. I was. Yeah, I was always firmly in
3:52
Speaker 1: the direction of the arts. It's not I'm not saying
3:54
Speaker 1: that they're polar opposites, but science felt a little bit
3:58
Speaker 1: farther away for my personal field of interest. But I
4:03
Speaker 1: respected a lot more now and I have a lot
4:05
Speaker 1: more connection to it and draw towards that direction. Yeah,
4:10
Speaker 1: I loved it and was terrified by it. I also
4:14
Speaker 1: love planetariums. We went to NASA the NASA Center in Huntll, Alabama,
4:20
Speaker 1: when I was in sixth grade. Of course, because you're
4:22
Speaker 1: in sixth grade, that trip was full of drama, but
4:24
Speaker 1: it was cool and I I loved like I have
4:28
Speaker 1: over three thousand of those glow in the dark stars
4:32
Speaker 1: my childhood roof um, which my mom later found out
4:36
Speaker 1: and then lamented, and she was like, well, I'll be
4:38
Speaker 1: able to sell the house. I'm like, this is a benefit.
4:41
Speaker 1: They're gonna be lucky to have this. I did constellations
4:46
Speaker 1: and everything, but I do I love the aesthetic as well,
4:50
Speaker 1: and that was one of the reasons I did that.
4:52
Speaker 1: I had a telescope. I also used to just draw
4:55
Speaker 1: the planets. I don't know why, but I thought they
4:58
Speaker 1: were really pretty. And now, as Samantha knows, I have
5:02
Speaker 1: a galaxy projector and I'll put it on at night
5:04
Speaker 1: and it will help me like relax, and sometimes I'll
5:06
Speaker 1: write to it, or sometimes I'll just listen to music
5:08
Speaker 1: and look at it. I love it. However, I was
5:11
Speaker 1: terrified of space, even though I loved science fiction um
5:15
Speaker 1: and even obviously space operas as their calls. Basically because
5:19
Speaker 1: of a prank that was played on me when I
5:21
Speaker 1: was nine years old that was very successful, but I'm
5:23
Speaker 1: still angry about it. Um. So I was. It was.
5:26
Speaker 1: It was a weird dynamic where I loved it but
5:28
Speaker 1: was terrified, and I was like, never would I ever
5:30
Speaker 1: go to space? And then once I got older, and
5:33
Speaker 1: I really loved like the science of it. I loved
5:37
Speaker 1: like the you know, figuring out how old stars were
5:39
Speaker 1: and stuff. Then I was like, oh, I'd like to
5:42
Speaker 1: go to space, which was a very big change for me.
5:47
Speaker 1: I probably never will, but oh, I thought this was
5:49
Speaker 1: gonna be one of those moments, those any moments where
5:51
Speaker 1: you uncover something about your weird and very interesting life
5:55
Speaker 1: that you're like, and I did, no, no, no, no, no,
6:02
Speaker 1: I have not done that. I've hiked very high mountains
6:06
Speaker 1: and that's probably the closest I will get and that's fine.
6:09
Speaker 1: It sounds like a very dangerous space. Uh space. Yeah, anyway,
6:16
Speaker 1: that was a nice ending. Thank you. I love it.
6:19
Speaker 1: And I think the one thing about but well, both
6:21
Speaker 1: the space and ocean is that there's so much discovery
6:24
Speaker 1: to be had still and the unknown is that scary part. Yeah. Yeah,
6:29
Speaker 1: And and recently I don't know if this is one
6:31
Speaker 1: of the reasons you chose this top of us, but
6:33
Speaker 1: we had that first photo of the black hole and
6:36
Speaker 1: also the sound that it makes that I was listening
6:38
Speaker 1: to it and it was beautiful and haunting. I was like, oh,
6:42
Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous about them. You can feel the
6:45
Speaker 1: vast expanse everything. Yes. Well, with all of that being said,
6:55
Speaker 1: who did you bring for us to discuss today, Eves? Well, yeah,
6:58
Speaker 1: I do just want to say, as part of the Segway, like,
7:01
Speaker 1: I think that it is relevant to the way that
7:04
Speaker 1: Maria Mitchell, who is our topic today, thought, um just
7:07
Speaker 1: about how little we know and how much of exploration
7:11
Speaker 1: and discovery and scientific investigation comes from curiosity and ignorance.
7:16
Speaker 1: And yes, so I think that there is a similar
7:20
Speaker 1: thinking there in what you just said to what the
7:23
Speaker 1: way that Maria Mitchell operated and thought as well. So
7:27
Speaker 1: in terms of her first she's considered the first recogn
7:30
Speaker 1: mass professional female astronomer in the United States. Um And
7:34
Speaker 1: she was also the first female member of the American
7:37
Speaker 1: Academy of Arts and Scientists. And she was the first
7:41
Speaker 1: person in America to discover, or in the world actually
7:44
Speaker 1: to discover the telescopic comment that she observed. Um And
7:47
Speaker 1: we'll get to that story of hers a little bit later,
7:49
Speaker 1: because it's one of the things that she was super
7:51
Speaker 1: well known for, but not the only thing, because there
7:54
Speaker 1: are a lot of markers of success in her story.
7:57
Speaker 1: There are a lot of first in her story, even
7:59
Speaker 1: so other ones that I didn't mention. So yeah, there's
8:04
Speaker 1: a lot about her story that is very impactful in
8:07
Speaker 1: the scientific realm, in the realm of observation of the
8:11
Speaker 1: skies and astronomy. But she also touched on education um
8:17
Speaker 1: And I think is an inspiration and role model in
8:21
Speaker 1: many ways as a person who delved really deep into
8:26
Speaker 1: the work that she was doing and really cared about
8:30
Speaker 1: passing on that work to other girls and young women
8:34
Speaker 1: and students and potential students of astronomy. Yeah, she's got
8:39
Speaker 1: a lot of fascinating, just like random kind of they
8:43
Speaker 1: were presented as throwaway facts in her story, and I
8:46
Speaker 1: was like, wait, I want to know more about that.
8:49
Speaker 1: But it's really it's really really interesting, and I'm again
8:54
Speaker 1: angry that I hadn't heard about it before and glad
8:55
Speaker 1: that you're going to tell us all about it. I
8:57
Speaker 1: am too. I am too, because I think usually in
9:01
Speaker 1: these out I think sometimes she might be on the
9:04
Speaker 1: scale of a little bit more well known, but I
9:07
Speaker 1: also think that's because of her own background. She's a
9:10
Speaker 1: white woman from the United States of the eighteen hundreds,
9:15
Speaker 1: so it's a little bit. I think more people have
9:17
Speaker 1: had access to her story, but it's still not one
9:20
Speaker 1: that is super well known. Um, even though she actually
9:23
Speaker 1: did a lot for the fields that she was in,
9:25
Speaker 1: and I do in these episodes try to bring more
9:28
Speaker 1: stories from marginalized people. Um. But she had such an
9:33
Speaker 1: impact on the field of astronomy and had such a
9:38
Speaker 1: fascinating story, and of course it's always worthwhile to tell
9:43
Speaker 1: stories that aren't as well known. Even if you are
9:47
Speaker 1: a person who's in science, like there's a good chance
9:49
Speaker 1: that you may not know her story. So yeah, I'm
9:53
Speaker 1: really excited to talk about her today. Should we get
9:57
Speaker 1: into it, Yeah, let's do it. So. She was born
10:00
Speaker 1: on August first, eighteen eighteen, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Her parents
10:06
Speaker 1: were William and Lydia Mitchell. Her father was an amateur astronomer,
10:10
Speaker 1: a teacher, and he later worked for a bank, and
10:13
Speaker 1: her mother worked for a library. She had a big family.
10:16
Speaker 1: She was the third of ten children, and her ancestors
10:21
Speaker 1: and her parents as well were Quakers and Quakers. If
10:24
Speaker 1: you don't, you're not that familiar with who they are.
10:26
Speaker 1: They are members of the religious Society of Friends, which
10:30
Speaker 1: is obviously as a religious organization, like has a lot
10:34
Speaker 1: more death to it than I'm going to explain right now,
10:36
Speaker 1: but it has ties to Christianity, though not all Quakers
10:39
Speaker 1: are Christians. Um their values emphasized peace, equality, and simplicity,
10:45
Speaker 1: and the history of their treatment and their advocacy of
10:50
Speaker 1: other people's human rights causes is very complex, but you
10:54
Speaker 1: will often see Quakers names associated with human rights causes
10:58
Speaker 1: in US history, like they were known for being involved
11:01
Speaker 1: in movements like abolition and women's suffrage and Native American rights,
11:05
Speaker 1: so there are links there, and her parents were obviously
11:11
Speaker 1: tied to that religion, but also really cared about education
11:16
Speaker 1: for her and her siblings and really emphasize that throughout
11:19
Speaker 1: their story. You'll see that her father is from her
11:22
Speaker 1: father and her mother, but her father, especially as an
11:24
Speaker 1: amateurs genre he was, UM, had a huge influence on her.
11:29
Speaker 1: They really cared about books, a thing that I love
11:31
Speaker 1: in their story, and her love for books really shines
11:33
Speaker 1: through and how she thinks everybody should study through books.
11:37
Speaker 1: So UM all the way here for that. But UM. Yeah,
11:40
Speaker 1: So her parents had a huge influence on her because
11:44
Speaker 1: Nantucket is an island and the work people did there
11:47
Speaker 1: required them to be at sea. The men that lived
11:50
Speaker 1: there were often away from home, and women would hold
11:54
Speaker 1: down the fort at home while men were away for
11:57
Speaker 1: long periods. And this, plus the presence of those Quaker
12:01
Speaker 1: values that we talked about, created conditions of relative independence
12:05
Speaker 1: for women. Um and her her parents. Because her parents
12:09
Speaker 1: valued education for all their children so much, the girls
12:13
Speaker 1: learned to so they learned to cook, but they also
12:15
Speaker 1: learned to read. The children went to school, but they
12:19
Speaker 1: also studied at home with the help of their parents,
12:23
Speaker 1: and early on Mariah showed an aptitude for math. She
12:27
Speaker 1: learned to use the sex stant and the telescope and
12:31
Speaker 1: at twelve years old, Mariah and her father observed a
12:34
Speaker 1: solar eclipse through a telescope in her home. And when
12:39
Speaker 1: she was sixteen, she left the school she was attending,
12:42
Speaker 1: but she soon began working there as an assistant teachers.
12:45
Speaker 1: So her path way toward the illustrious life and astronomy
12:50
Speaker 1: that she had started pretty early. And I'm thinking, I'm like,
12:54
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, she was sixteen and she was already
12:56
Speaker 1: starting this pretty cool. She soon opened to school of
13:13
Speaker 1: her own, where she admitted students of color, which was
13:16
Speaker 1: controversial at the time. Then she became a librarian. She
13:19
Speaker 1: followed in her mother's footsteps. She became a librarian at
13:23
Speaker 1: the Nantucket Atheneum, which was established in eighteen thirty four
13:28
Speaker 1: when the Nantucket Mechanics Social Library and the Colombian Library
13:32
Speaker 1: Society joined. It operated as a private subscription library. Here's
13:39
Speaker 1: one of those first that we didn't mention earlier, and
13:41
Speaker 1: that Mariah Mitchell was the first librarian there and she
13:45
Speaker 1: was just eighteen at that point. And during this time
13:48
Speaker 1: she and her father kept getting equipment and conducting observations,
13:52
Speaker 1: working for the U. S Coast Survey and other organizations.
13:57
Speaker 1: She worked at the sen Um as a librarian for
14:00
Speaker 1: twenty years, and the atheneum hosted things like anti slavery conventions,
14:06
Speaker 1: and the building itself was burned in a huge fire
14:08
Speaker 1: in Nantucket in eighteen forty six and had to be rebuilt,
14:11
Speaker 1: so it was in a very interesting place. You'll see
14:15
Speaker 1: um in her diary entries that she talks about the
14:19
Speaker 1: people who came in and out of the location. So,
14:23
Speaker 1: like I said, there were anti slavery conventions, so it
14:25
Speaker 1: was just a meeting space for intellectual conversation and depth
14:29
Speaker 1: and all those things, but people would also come in
14:31
Speaker 1: just to see Mariah herself. When she talks about kind
14:35
Speaker 1: of being like bored with those people, and her diary
14:38
Speaker 1: entries like, yeah, I'm used to it. They come through,
14:40
Speaker 1: they're looking for me. Yeah. But um, it seems clearly
14:47
Speaker 1: she enjoyed her time there. She was there for twenty years,
14:50
Speaker 1: and um, there's a lot of history in her being
14:54
Speaker 1: able to study herself while she was still working as
14:57
Speaker 1: a librarian there. But also the impact that she had
15:00
Speaker 1: on other people who came through, like people who would
15:03
Speaker 1: go off too far away places and she would see
15:07
Speaker 1: them change and they would write back to her and
15:09
Speaker 1: they would come back and visit her. Um so some
15:12
Speaker 1: pretty warm and interesting interactions. It seems like she had
15:15
Speaker 1: there in addition to all of the people that she
15:19
Speaker 1: came into contact with while she was there, people like
15:22
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas UM who came for those meeting spaces over
15:28
Speaker 1: issues like women's rights and abolition. Anyway, um, on the
15:32
Speaker 1: night of October one, eighteen forty seven, she spotted a
15:36
Speaker 1: comment when looking through her telescope. Um so rewind back
15:40
Speaker 1: to back in eighteen thirty one, the King of Denmark
15:44
Speaker 1: offered a gold medal to the people who were the
15:46
Speaker 1: first to discover their respective telescopic comments. UM. I'm using
15:51
Speaker 1: finger quotes right now because telescopic comments are comments that
15:54
Speaker 1: you couldn't see without a telescope. So that king was dead,
15:59
Speaker 1: but thanks to his son, the offer still stood and
16:04
Speaker 1: that comment that Maria observed. Others observed the comment after her,
16:09
Speaker 1: namely Francesco da Vico on October three, and there were
16:14
Speaker 1: other people as well, but he reported that to others,
16:17
Speaker 1: and a Vico, as the first despoted in Europe, was
16:20
Speaker 1: thought to have earned that medal, but he didn't because
16:23
Speaker 1: he saw it after Maria, and because she saw it.
16:26
Speaker 1: A couple of days before him, and that was eventually recognized.
16:31
Speaker 1: Um Mariah's father sent mail to Harvard University talking about
16:35
Speaker 1: the discovery and how it was delayed. There was like
16:38
Speaker 1: delays for weather because they had to go through the mail,
16:42
Speaker 1: so there were delays because of that. So it was
16:43
Speaker 1: an unfortunate happenstance. And Edward Everett, who was the president
16:48
Speaker 1: of Harvard University at the time, advocated for Maria being
16:51
Speaker 1: the deserving prize winner, and she was recognized as the
16:55
Speaker 1: first I have observed it, though it took a minute
16:57
Speaker 1: for her to actually get her award in the mail
17:00
Speaker 1: was awarded for being the first person to spot that
17:02
Speaker 1: comment through the telescope, and the comment was named eighteen
17:05
Speaker 1: forty seven six or now see eighteen forty seven one
17:09
Speaker 1: in the modern designation, and it was also known as Ms.
17:13
Speaker 1: Mitchell's comment. I love that. Would I want a comment
17:17
Speaker 1: named after y'all? I would until it destroyed something or
17:20
Speaker 1: I don't know. If it was a nice comment. That
17:24
Speaker 1: was pretty anno way, yeah, it was a nice just
17:28
Speaker 1: us hello and moves on. I am very fascinated by
17:34
Speaker 1: this race to find the first comment, or to be
17:37
Speaker 1: the one to spot the comment. I wonder how that
17:39
Speaker 1: went down because you know, today, if you didn't have
17:41
Speaker 1: to picture proof that was dated and stamped, do people
17:45
Speaker 1: believe this? Maybe I'm just too caught up in social
17:47
Speaker 1: media world where we're too caught up in like this
17:49
Speaker 1: could be easily faked. When was this done? Type of thing?
17:52
Speaker 1: But that's fascinating to see how this was all verified.
17:57
Speaker 1: Who said what? What can because like, if you don't
17:59
Speaker 1: see it, how can you un listone was there with you?
18:02
Speaker 1: How do you approve I saw this comment first. I
18:05
Speaker 1: just find it very fascinating, and then also I love
18:07
Speaker 1: that people actually went to bat for her in order
18:10
Speaker 1: to make sure that she got that credit. But it's like,
18:12
Speaker 1: it's very interesting and like, how do you do this?
18:14
Speaker 1: This feels like a whole like drama that you have
18:17
Speaker 1: to do somehow to show that you were the one
18:20
Speaker 1: to see it. Yeah, that's a good point, Samantha, because
18:23
Speaker 1: it's really hard to be believing of these kinds of
18:26
Speaker 1: things in the era of deep fakes. And I wasn't
18:29
Speaker 1: even thinking about it in that way. That's definitely one
18:31
Speaker 1: way to think of it. I was thinking about it
18:33
Speaker 1: in the way of like there is like in other
18:37
Speaker 1: ways there's such a rigorous process of documenting something like,
18:40
Speaker 1: for instance, where the Guinness Book of World Records. UM.
18:44
Speaker 1: And also we have I guess maybe I'm not sure
18:49
Speaker 1: I might be speaking in front of myself right now,
18:52
Speaker 1: but that we have such a specific understanding of the
18:57
Speaker 1: scale of things because we're so connected globally at the
19:00
Speaker 1: point in time. So I find myself thinking like, of course, like,
19:03
Speaker 1: of course somebody somewhere did that before. We just don't
19:06
Speaker 1: know about it because there are nearly eight billion people
19:09
Speaker 1: on the planet, and like the world is so big,
19:12
Speaker 1: and so many things have been undiscovered, and so many
19:13
Speaker 1: people don't have access to resources to report things, and
19:17
Speaker 1: you know, like it's and I think that a lot
19:19
Speaker 1: with a lot of these first like there has to
19:21
Speaker 1: be somewhere else, um. And I think that's the case
19:25
Speaker 1: with this calling Mariah the first recognized professional female astronomer
19:30
Speaker 1: in the United States. I mean, there are a lot
19:31
Speaker 1: of qualifiers to that. What are we considering a professional?
19:35
Speaker 1: You know, are we doing this specifically because she's a
19:37
Speaker 1: white woman? UM? So a lot of things to think
19:41
Speaker 1: about in that regress. Thank you for raising that point. Sorry,
19:44
Speaker 1: I'm very suspicious today. Picks there didn't happen, I see
19:50
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, cheers. So on around this time May
20:01
Speaker 1: eighty eight, so um, we're around the anniversary of that,
20:04
Speaker 1: she became the first woman elected to the American Academy
20:09
Speaker 1: of Arts and Sciences. You can look at her certificate
20:13
Speaker 1: of admission online into the Academy. On it, you can
20:16
Speaker 1: see the word sir crossed out, which is funny to me,
20:19
Speaker 1: like they just had this stack of them with I
20:22
Speaker 1: don't know how that error happened. I'm not quite sure
20:25
Speaker 1: they already had a stack printed out that somehow had
20:27
Speaker 1: her name on it. Not sure, but the word fellow
20:30
Speaker 1: was also crossed out and written over it as a
20:32
Speaker 1: phrase an honorary member. I'm so pretty cool to look
20:35
Speaker 1: at that history. Moving along her timeline, in eighteen forty nine,
20:39
Speaker 1: she moved with her father and began working as a
20:42
Speaker 1: computer calculating tables for the US Nautical Almanac. She was
20:47
Speaker 1: assigned calculating tables for the orbit of Venus, and the
20:53
Speaker 1: next year she became the first woman elected to the
20:55
Speaker 1: American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she talks
21:01
Speaker 1: about in her diary entries, and it's known that she
21:03
Speaker 1: wanted to travel through Europe for a while in her life.
21:06
Speaker 1: Though she didn't make a ton of money, she had
21:08
Speaker 1: been saving and she did end up making this happen.
21:12
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty six, she left her job at the Athenaeum,
21:16
Speaker 1: and in eighteen fifty seven she traveled throughout southern US
21:20
Speaker 1: and through Europe, and many years later, I think it
21:23
Speaker 1: was in the eighteen seventies, she did end up returning
21:25
Speaker 1: to Europe again for some more travels during the summer. Anyway,
21:28
Speaker 1: in that first trip, she met a bunch of people
21:30
Speaker 1: while she was traveling through Europe, like astronomer John Herschel,
21:34
Speaker 1: Alexander von Humboldt, and mathematician and writer Mary Somerville. She
21:39
Speaker 1: visited observatories there, including the Vatican Observatory, and in terms
21:45
Speaker 1: of her personal life, her mother did become sick in
21:48
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, and over the years Maria took care
21:52
Speaker 1: of her. Her mother did end up dying in eighteen
21:55
Speaker 1: sixty one, and after that Mariah moved to Land, Massachusetts
21:59
Speaker 1: with her dad. So this kind of next part kind
22:04
Speaker 1: of begins a different part of her life, whereas this
22:09
Speaker 1: one up until this point was pretty heavily focused on
22:13
Speaker 1: her own scientific investigation and sweeping the guy's as she
22:16
Speaker 1: would say, and her own observations. In eighteen sixty five,
22:21
Speaker 1: she was appointed professor of astronomy at Vassar College in
22:24
Speaker 1: New York, which was initially a woman's only school. So
22:28
Speaker 1: she starts to move in the direction of being super
22:31
Speaker 1: focused on her work at vasser What she was contributing
22:34
Speaker 1: to her students there really uplifting the program of astronomy
22:38
Speaker 1: there and observatory there and guiding students into being part
22:44
Speaker 1: of the astronomy world and learning more about it and
22:48
Speaker 1: being a teacher. And she was also named director of
22:50
Speaker 1: the observatory at the college, which was opposed. That she
22:53
Speaker 1: held for more than twenty years, so she did another
22:56
Speaker 1: twenty years stance somewhere else. She clearly was a person
22:59
Speaker 1: who like to stay where she liked to be had. Yeah,
23:02
Speaker 1: so her salary at the college was eight hundred dollars
23:05
Speaker 1: a year, and that was less than other male professors.
23:09
Speaker 1: We're getting so we know this narrative. This narrative existed
23:14
Speaker 1: in the eighteen the mid eighteen hundreds as well, and
23:18
Speaker 1: it was one that Maria herself called out. She you
23:21
Speaker 1: can read the story of her going through this compensation
23:25
Speaker 1: battle with the trustees at her school. She got room
23:29
Speaker 1: and board for herself and her father, but male professor's
23:33
Speaker 1: salary was two thousand dollars although rant fuel and lights
23:36
Speaker 1: were not coverage in their compensation packages. She and another
23:41
Speaker 1: woman professor petition for a higher salary and for their
23:45
Speaker 1: compensation to be on par with the men's. She did
23:48
Speaker 1: end up getting to pay increase. It's a whole saga,
23:51
Speaker 1: but she did end up getting a pay increased, though
23:54
Speaker 1: the committee that was handling the issue did, for a
23:56
Speaker 1: time charge her sixteen dollars a week for a furnished
24:00
Speaker 1: room with light and heat, which was not not good enough.
24:04
Speaker 1: That was too much and a number that number also
24:08
Speaker 1: effectively lowered her salary for that which she deemed too high.
24:12
Speaker 1: So that was gonna be a problem. That wasn't gonna
24:14
Speaker 1: work for her. So she wasn't going to settle for
24:17
Speaker 1: getting a bump in her pay. She had to, you know,
24:20
Speaker 1: make sure that she was actually being fairly compensated. And
24:23
Speaker 1: of course, as those battles go, she didn't necessarily get
24:27
Speaker 1: everything she wanted. That number was eventually lowered to ten
24:30
Speaker 1: dollars a week, I think it was, but she became
24:33
Speaker 1: increasingly invested in teaching over her own scientific inquiry. She continued, though,
24:41
Speaker 1: to work for the Nautical Almanac for a while, but
24:45
Speaker 1: she eventually let go of that work to focus solely
24:48
Speaker 1: on her work at the college. And there's a lot
24:53
Speaker 1: of warmth. They're pretty warm to read all of the
24:56
Speaker 1: praise that she got from her students and her colleagues.
25:01
Speaker 1: Her teaching style was unconventional, and many of her students
25:05
Speaker 1: grew to love her after being in her classes. She
25:08
Speaker 1: would bring students out to the observatory at night. She
25:11
Speaker 1: wanted students to actually learn things rather than just memorize things.
25:16
Speaker 1: She also wanted them to study on their own and
25:21
Speaker 1: read rather than just be lectured to. And she recognized
25:25
Speaker 1: the value in her students learning on their own and
25:28
Speaker 1: arriving at their own truths through their own investigations, and
25:32
Speaker 1: she would publish her and her students findings and journals.
25:36
Speaker 1: She traveled with her students to observe eclipses like Samantha
25:40
Speaker 1: does and clearly Annie and I do not. I did
25:43
Speaker 1: that time a couple of years ago. Pictures, people have
25:49
Speaker 1: tons of pictures, and she helped raise funds for the
26:07
Speaker 1: observatory as well, and she would publicly advocate in general
26:11
Speaker 1: for better women's education and the need for women in science,
26:15
Speaker 1: and she joined other group she was part of other organizations.
26:18
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty nine she became a member of the
26:20
Speaker 1: American Philosophical Society. She was also one of the early
26:25
Speaker 1: members of the American Association for the Advancement of Women,
26:30
Speaker 1: at one point even its president, and at another point
26:33
Speaker 1: headed its committee on Science. So she was running in
26:36
Speaker 1: a lot of circles with activists and met them through
26:41
Speaker 1: things like speeches she saw. And some of these people
26:45
Speaker 1: were her friends, some more people were Some of these
26:48
Speaker 1: people were acquaintances that she met in her travels in Europe,
26:51
Speaker 1: so she had a pretty extended reach. But other people
26:55
Speaker 1: like Frederick Douglas that she knew. Others were Ralph Waldo Emerson,
26:59
Speaker 1: Lucy's done and William Lloyd Garrison. So her father who
27:05
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on her throughout her life. He
27:08
Speaker 1: died in eighteen sixty nine and later in eighteen seventy three.
27:12
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned earlier, she spent more time in Europe.
27:17
Speaker 1: So one of the great things about her history is
27:19
Speaker 1: that you can read some of her own writing and
27:22
Speaker 1: quite a bit of it and quite candid as well
27:26
Speaker 1: in the journal entries that she provided and one she
27:30
Speaker 1: talks about, I mean, I could go on forever about these,
27:33
Speaker 1: I think I love she was very eloquent in the
27:36
Speaker 1: way that she put things as well. Her turns of
27:39
Speaker 1: phrases are pretty pretty inspiring, I would say, because I
27:45
Speaker 1: know a lot of times we can read these old
27:47
Speaker 1: journal entries, like if you've ever going back to some
27:50
Speaker 1: of the other people we've talked about in the past
27:52
Speaker 1: and past female first, a lot of them had journal
27:54
Speaker 1: entries as well, but sometimes they were written in the
27:58
Speaker 1: person style of voye, so often it was interesting to
28:01
Speaker 1: read their stories, but they didn't necessarily put it in
28:04
Speaker 1: the best way, like their addiction wasn't the most interesting. Um.
28:07
Speaker 1: But I do find that reading Mariah Mitchell's work and
28:11
Speaker 1: her words through her journal entries, they drudged up a
28:15
Speaker 1: lot of different ways of thinking, even if those philosophies
28:19
Speaker 1: were ones that are was already familiar with, so it
28:23
Speaker 1: could be worthwhile reading for that from that perspective. But
28:26
Speaker 1: in one she talks about how women have been confined
28:29
Speaker 1: to women's work and to doing that in little else
28:32
Speaker 1: to take up all their time. But she says that
28:35
Speaker 1: quote the universe of truth beyond remains unentered. So talking
28:39
Speaker 1: about the way that women were looked at in their
28:42
Speaker 1: capacity for learning and putting them into educational programs. With
28:48
Speaker 1: those educational programs did there was one she talked about
28:51
Speaker 1: when she went to Europe. I can't remember exactly what
28:54
Speaker 1: place it was, but she went there and they were
28:57
Speaker 1: teaching them. They were like are She was like, are
28:59
Speaker 1: you teaching them Latin? Are you teaching them math? And
29:01
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, they're just women. But there she
29:03
Speaker 1: was like, are you teaching them lad? Are you teaching
29:05
Speaker 1: them math? And we're going to teach the math next year?
29:07
Speaker 1: What about letting oh, they're women like? It was that
29:11
Speaker 1: kind of situation, and she says that quote unquote women's
29:15
Speaker 1: work actually makes women well suited to astronomical observation. And
29:20
Speaker 1: there's this one pretty cool quote where she says, the
29:23
Speaker 1: eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of
29:26
Speaker 1: embroidery will equally will bisect a star with the spider
29:31
Speaker 1: web of the micrometer. Routine observations too dull, as they
29:35
Speaker 1: are are less dull than the endless repetition of the
29:38
Speaker 1: same pattern, and crochet work. So she's drawing this nice
29:42
Speaker 1: parallel between quote unquote women's work. In this instance, she's
29:47
Speaker 1: talking about embroidery and sewing and the skill not even talent,
29:53
Speaker 1: the skill that is necessary because it's one that's built,
29:56
Speaker 1: one that can be learned, um, and drawing the line
29:59
Speaker 1: between that and the work that is done in astronomical observation,
30:04
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool, Like not a parallel that I've
30:06
Speaker 1: ever thought about, but it reads this pretty poetic. She
30:10
Speaker 1: talks about how she likes being outside at night, looking
30:14
Speaker 1: through the telescope and breathing fresh air. At one point,
30:17
Speaker 1: she says, but her back gets tired and she gets cold.
30:21
Speaker 1: You know, she really loves it, which like that's real love,
30:25
Speaker 1: something when they take a toll on you in a way. Also,
30:28
Speaker 1: she doesn't talk a ton about her personal life and
30:31
Speaker 1: her connection to a religion before a certain point, like
30:35
Speaker 1: before the ten forties, but she does mention caring less
30:38
Speaker 1: about church doctrine the more she hears of it over time.
30:41
Speaker 1: You can hear kind of her disdain in her turn
30:45
Speaker 1: of phrase, in the way that she talks about, uh,
30:48
Speaker 1: not being so into it after a certain point. She
30:52
Speaker 1: says that like her a reverend that she knew. She
30:56
Speaker 1: comments on a reverend that came through and she said
30:58
Speaker 1: that he, like her, is quote unquote w wh just
31:00
Speaker 1: only in feeling. So she never joined any church, though
31:04
Speaker 1: she did attend the Unitarian Church for for some years. Yeah,
31:08
Speaker 1: so I think we could go into her journal entries forever,
31:11
Speaker 1: but they do provide a lot of insight on the
31:14
Speaker 1: breath of experience that she had some um, the good,
31:17
Speaker 1: the bat and the ugly all taken together. She talks
31:20
Speaker 1: about going to a slave market at one point, and
31:24
Speaker 1: then there's another part which is funny to me where
31:29
Speaker 1: she talks about going to a black church where the
31:31
Speaker 1: pastor says their, quote unquote not much for talking, but
31:35
Speaker 1: he talked for a quote full hour, And I like,
31:38
Speaker 1: I had to stop for that one because I am
31:40
Speaker 1: so used to that as a person who went to
31:42
Speaker 1: the Baptist church. It's just so funny to me that
31:46
Speaker 1: this is from the eighteen and it was the exact same.
31:49
Speaker 1: She talks about all the exultation that happens in the
31:52
Speaker 1: black church that she went to in the call in response,
31:54
Speaker 1: which she wasn't used to but I'm super used to
31:56
Speaker 1: as a Black woman who grew up in the church
31:58
Speaker 1: in the South, and how services and sermons were always
32:02
Speaker 1: far too long. But she has these moments where she
32:07
Speaker 1: talks about going to the slave market and she acknowledges
32:10
Speaker 1: the tragedy of being separated from your family to be
32:13
Speaker 1: sold elsewhere. She's basically, oh, you poor thing. You know,
32:16
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine being separated from my family in that way,
32:19
Speaker 1: all of my kindreds or something like that, she says.
32:23
Speaker 1: And then and that was obviously a pair of phrase
32:25
Speaker 1: going mute herself. But in another entry she says, she
32:28
Speaker 1: doesn't think that the slaves are badly treated, just quote
32:32
Speaker 1: unquote sleek, fat, and lazy. And I'm not sure exactly
32:36
Speaker 1: what the word sleek means in that I'm guessing it
32:39
Speaker 1: means something about appearance, but it is definitely used. It's
32:43
Speaker 1: paired with the fat and lazy idea, so it has
32:45
Speaker 1: to be something, you know, in those derogatory terms, basically
32:48
Speaker 1: like they don't seem like they're they seem pretty happy,
32:51
Speaker 1: you know there. So there are these moments where you
32:54
Speaker 1: can see the contradictions of her thinking and how the
32:57
Speaker 1: time that she was in and her being a white
32:59
Speaker 1: woman in the eighteen hun is affected the way that
33:00
Speaker 1: she thought about things in all the hypocrisy in that
33:02
Speaker 1: specific instance that was present. UM. So it's always worthwhile
33:07
Speaker 1: going and saying what the people said themselves. And so
33:09
Speaker 1: is the case for Mariah UM. And y'all know I
33:14
Speaker 1: love quotes, so I could go on forever, but UM
33:17
Speaker 1: not going to. I do appreciate her thoughts on She
33:21
Speaker 1: talks about how she doesn't know a lot. There's a
33:26
Speaker 1: quote where she says, I look back at my old
33:28
Speaker 1: computations and like, I see now that I don't really
33:33
Speaker 1: know a bunch more. You know, I'm a better thinker,
33:37
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't know so much more than
33:41
Speaker 1: I knew there before. And she says that the quote
33:44
Speaker 1: the world of learning is so broad, but the human
33:46
Speaker 1: soul is so limited in power. We reached forth and
33:49
Speaker 1: strain every nerve, but we see is only a bit
33:51
Speaker 1: of the curtain that hides the infinite from us. So
33:55
Speaker 1: her students enjoyed her the way that she spoke to Um.
34:01
Speaker 1: They talked about how they were inspired by some of
34:04
Speaker 1: the things that she said. But she did resign from
34:07
Speaker 1: Vasser and January of eighteen eighty eight to the disappointment
34:10
Speaker 1: of many of her students and colleagues. They didn't want
34:13
Speaker 1: her to leave so much that the trustees asked her
34:15
Speaker 1: to keep living at the college and using the observatory,
34:17
Speaker 1: which is where she was living. But she declined and
34:21
Speaker 1: she went back to Lynn, Massachusetts with her family, and
34:24
Speaker 1: she ended up dying just about a year later on
34:27
Speaker 1: June eighty nine. And the biography that was published posthumously
34:34
Speaker 1: in eight s was Mariah Mitchell Life, Letters and Journals,
34:38
Speaker 1: and that's where you can read a lot of her work.
34:41
Speaker 1: Her home was preserved and she was recognized in the
34:44
Speaker 1: National Women's Hall of Fame and foundation that Maria Mitchell
34:49
Speaker 1: Association was established in Nantucket, and there was an observatory
34:53
Speaker 1: in Nantucket named after her, as well as another object
34:57
Speaker 1: in space, a crater on the Moon was named after her.
35:01
Speaker 1: So she has been remembered in many ways. Creator on
35:04
Speaker 1: the Moon. Yeah, that's something I would like. I didn't.
35:10
Speaker 1: That's not gonna lie. That's the new one to me.
35:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think I've talked about somebody else. Any
35:16
Speaker 1: of that had a creator. I do think there was
35:18
Speaker 1: one other person. I can't remember who it was. I
35:20
Speaker 1: missed that part. Well, now you know, Now I definitely
35:26
Speaker 1: know I'm still learning as well, so yes, we are
35:30
Speaker 1: still learning. Um. Yeah, this it was a fascinating story
35:34
Speaker 1: and definitely the journal. Um. As you said, the good
35:39
Speaker 1: and the bad, there were. There are some excellent burns
35:42
Speaker 1: she has from like her time in Europe, specifically where
35:46
Speaker 1: she would like call people out and I really appreciated that. Um.
35:50
Speaker 1: So yeah, worth worth reading. Um. And it is interesting
35:54
Speaker 1: to kind of get this window into what was going
35:58
Speaker 1: on at that time, and because she was she was
36:01
Speaker 1: very good with words, but she was also very personal.
36:04
Speaker 1: I don't know if that makes sense, Like you could
36:05
Speaker 1: tell it was her, like she was shining through what
36:08
Speaker 1: she was writing. Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes people's
36:12
Speaker 1: journals can read as just a lot of things that happened,
36:16
Speaker 1: but she clearly really was meditating on things as she
36:19
Speaker 1: was going through them, and I think we get glimpses
36:21
Speaker 1: of both of those, like these really broad philosophical ideas
36:26
Speaker 1: and then also like you know, I went here in
36:29
Speaker 1: Europe and I talked to this person. So I think
36:32
Speaker 1: it's a nice mix. M H. Well, I guess New
36:38
Speaker 1: Goal get a comment or creator named after us everyone, UM, yeah,
36:47
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that's on my bucket list. But
36:50
Speaker 1: I would want to create or named after me. That's
36:52
Speaker 1: phils offensive. I don't better than a comment. I don't know.
36:58
Speaker 1: I'll have to think about this. There's so many things
37:00
Speaker 1: to this. Yeah, I did really Also I loved hearing
37:03
Speaker 1: about her, But it is obvious, like like, there's a
37:06
Speaker 1: lot of problematic things when you are nicely tucked into
37:11
Speaker 1: um a privileged setting. Even the fact that that her
37:15
Speaker 1: like it's lovely to see that a father, men and
37:18
Speaker 1: her life were actually advocating for her to get the
37:20
Speaker 1: recognition and she still had to work and push to
37:23
Speaker 1: get other women to be a part of this conversation.
37:26
Speaker 1: But with some of the things that you talked about,
37:29
Speaker 1: it's obvious that she was very like, well, it didn't
37:31
Speaker 1: doesn't really affect me, So I don't think it's that
37:32
Speaker 1: bad type of narrative. And that's always something that we
37:35
Speaker 1: have to look out for when it comes to putting
37:38
Speaker 1: people on pedestals in general. We can learn from them
37:40
Speaker 1: and definitely celebrate the goodness and the amazing things that
37:43
Speaker 1: they did, but we also have to put in reality
37:45
Speaker 1: they were people, and these are flaws, and these are
37:47
Speaker 1: huge flaws. These are problematic flaws and we have to
37:50
Speaker 1: recognize that. But she did also love her people, like
37:52
Speaker 1: you were talking about she wrote. When you said Ralph
37:55
Speaker 1: oh while the Emmerson, I was like, oh, that's why.
37:57
Speaker 1: Like I can see the poetry level of her writings
38:01
Speaker 1: because she actually wrote some poetry to the boys. She's like,
38:03
Speaker 1: I had to rhyme these names about her students. And
38:07
Speaker 1: it's lovely to see that because I'm like, yeah, that's
38:09
Speaker 1: how I wrote too. I was like, how do I
38:11
Speaker 1: rhyme this name to this? So I was like, hey,
38:15
Speaker 1: look at that, this is how do works. I'm okay,
38:18
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But yeah, it's very
38:21
Speaker 1: interesting to see when you start looking at the depth
38:23
Speaker 1: of the history. We always like to put that caveat
38:26
Speaker 1: of this is what we know, this is what's been recorded, uh,
38:30
Speaker 1: and think good as someone did preserve this because now
38:32
Speaker 1: we see. But that doesn't necessarily mean that she was
38:35
Speaker 1: the absolute first, or they are the absolute first, and
38:38
Speaker 1: or that everything you read is pristine and pretty like
38:42
Speaker 1: we have to put the he shined the light on
38:45
Speaker 1: all of it as it should be. Yeah. Yeah, um,
38:50
Speaker 1: and you eaves are always so great at that you
38:53
Speaker 1: bring us these and you want stories, uh, and we
38:55
Speaker 1: love it. We're always so thrilled when you're here. So
38:58
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you for coming. Always happy
39:03
Speaker 1: to be here. Yes, yes, it's yes. Um, Well, where
39:07
Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you? You can find me
39:10
Speaker 1: on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at Eves Jeff Cote,
39:15
Speaker 1: and you can find me on this here show on
39:17
Speaker 1: many other episodes of Female First. You can go back
39:20
Speaker 1: through the catalog we're I think in the twenties at
39:23
Speaker 1: this point of episodes that we have so you can
39:25
Speaker 1: hear about other people in history who were the first
39:28
Speaker 1: to do whatever they were the first to do. And
39:32
Speaker 1: that's about it. Yes, yes, I think we're doing for
39:36
Speaker 1: another celebration soon. I'm just gonna always sticking to the
39:40
Speaker 1: cheesecake and champagne theme. Are are we gonna? What else
39:43
Speaker 1: are we thinking? Um? I don't know. We might have
39:49
Speaker 1: to switch it up next time. Okay, well we'll figure
39:52
Speaker 1: that out. We'll figure that out. Uh. In the meantime, listeners,
39:55
Speaker 1: if you would like to contact us, you can our
39:56
Speaker 1: emails stuff and your mom stuff at I hurt me
39:58
Speaker 1: dot com. You can might us on Twitter at my
40:00
Speaker 1: a podcast or Instagram and stuff I've Never Told you.
40:02
Speaker 1: Thanks as always wear a super producer, Christina, thank you,
40:05
Speaker 1: Thanks you for listening stuff on Never Told the production
40:07
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. More podcast on my Heart Radio
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40:11
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