E-Book Overview
Careers in astronomy for women (as in other sciences) were a rarity in Britain and Ireland until well into the twentieth century. The book investigates the place of women in astronomy before that era, recounted in the form of biographies of about 25 women born between 1650 and 1900 who in varying capacities contributed to its progress during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are some famous names among them whose biographies have been written before now, there are others who have received less than their due recognition while many more occupied inconspicuous and sometimes thankless places as assistants to male family members. All deserve to be remembered as interesting individuals in an earlier opportunity-poor age. Placed in roughly chronological order, their lives constitute a sample thread in the story of female entry into the male world of science.
The book is aimed at astronomers, amateur astronomers, historians of science, and promoters of women in science, but being written in non-technical language it is intended to be of interest also to educated readers generally.
E-Book Content
Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy Mary Brück Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy Stars and Satellites Mary Brück ISBN 978-90-481-2472-5 e-ISBN 978-90-481-2473-2 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2473-2 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009931554 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) For my sisters (n´ees Conway) Eithne, Meadhbh and Aoife Foreword The role of women in the growth of science has become an important area of modern historical scholarly research. And as far as the study of the role of women in astronomy is concerned, Dr. Mary Br¨uck is an established and illustrious pioneer, with an international reputation and acclaimed books and articles already to her credit. Her present book, Stars and Satellites, brings together many figures who worked over a 300-year time scale, and whose relationship with astronomy ranged from informed assistants to independent researchers to major writers and interpreters of contemporary astronomy to, eventually, paid professionals. But what is more, Mary Br¨uck is the undoubted pioneer in the study of Irish women scientists, several of whom appear in the present volume, for Ireland was one of the most astronomically-active regions of the British Isles in the nineteenth century. And as she is a professional astronomer herself, with a University College Dublin training, combined with a love of history and an Irishwoman’s genius for narrative and the gift of making people come to life, her latest book is both a mine of information and a joy to read. In the present-day world, where it is accepted that capable girls will have full access to secondary and then higher education, and will proceed to the professions with a first-rate training behind them, we tend to have a distorted view of earlier scientific women. It is true that most girls and women in the past were not expected to become involved in science and scholarship, and as the elderly Mary Somerville recorded in her Personal Recollections (as mentioned in Chapter 6), access to learning in the days of her youth, around 1800, was not easy. But I would argue that the opportunity for w