Laura Elizabeth Hill McLaughlin (born September 3, 1893, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - died February 22, 1991) was a computer, instructor and researcher of astronomy. As an astronomer of the

Detroit Observatory The Detroit Observatory is located on the corner of Observatory and Ann streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was built in 1854, and was the first scientific research facility at the University of Michigan and one of the oldest observatories of its ty ...

for the University of Michigan, she conducted research work alongside her husband, fellow Detroit Observatory astronomer Dean B. Mclaughlin.

Early life and education

Raised within the Methodist Home for Children in Philadelphia, Laura Elizabeth Hill was the first of the Home ever to attend college. She received a B.A. in Astronomy in 1917 with her thesis, “Proper Motions of Stars from Micrometric Measures” from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She then remained at Northwestern to achieve an A.M in Astronomy. To earn a doctoral degree, she went to the University of Michigan. By 1929, she had graduated with a Ph.D. in Astronomy with her dissertation, “A Micro-Photometric Study of the Spectrum of Beta Lyrae”. The dissertation was conducted under the direction of

Director Ralph Hamilton Curtiss. This was the last of her major research publications.

Career

Alongside her education, McLaughlin also worked in teaching and computer positions. Specifically, while pursuing her bachelor’s degree, she taught physics, mathematics, and German at three high schools in South Dakota and New Jersey. When pursuing a Master’s degree, she worked at the Dearborn Observatory as a computer. Her name and computational works appear in the publication “Stellar Parallaxes: Determined from Photographs made with the 18½-inch Refractor of the Detroit Observatory”.Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). Dearborn Observatory, and Dearborn Observatory. Annals of the Dearborn Observatory of Northwestern University. Evanston, Illinois: 1915. Prior to beginning Ph.D. work at the University of Michigan, she taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Personal life and legacy

Mclaughlin married fellow Detroit Observatory astronomer

Dean Benjamin McLaughlin Dean Benjamin McLaughlin (born October 25, 1901, Brooklyn, New York CIty; died December 8, 1965, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US) was an American astronomer. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan. He was the father of the science f ...

in 1927. It was that year that Dean joined the U-M Faculty as an assistant professor of astronomy, coming from

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

where he spent three years as an instructor of mathematics and astronomy. While Mclaughlin assisted her husband in his astronomical research efforts at the Detroit Observatory, she did not publish any independent work after the creation of her dissertation. They had five children: one son (science-fiction writer Dean McLaughlin Jr.) and four daughters (Elizabeth Schick, Laura Alberta Dawson, Sarah McLaughlin, and Margaret Farley), and fourteen grandchildren. She remained an active participant in Methodist Church community activities until her death in 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McLaughlin, Laura H. 1893 births 1991 deaths Scientists from Philadelphia American women astronomers Northwestern University alumni University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American astronomers 20th-century American women scientists Vassar College faculty Place of death missing