Margaretta Palmer (1862–1924) was an American astronomer, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in astronomy. She worked at the

Yale University Observatory The Yale University Observatory, also known as the Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium, is an astronomy, astronomical observatory owned and operated by Yale University, and maintained for student use. It is located in Farnham Memorial Garden ...

at a time when woman were frequently hired as assistant astronomers, but when most of these women had only a high school education, so Palmer's advanced degree made her unusual for her time.

Early life and education

Palmer was born to a farming family in

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline New England town, town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 United Sta ...

on August 29, 1862, and completed a bachelor's degree at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

in 1887. At Yale, she took two classes in astronomy with

Maria Mitchell Maria Mitchell ( /məˈraɪə/; August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI (modern designation C/1847 T1) that was later known as " Miss Mi ...

, although her graduation address concerned Greek tragedy. After graduating, she worked as an assistant to Mitchell and as a Latin instructor at Vassar. In 1889 she was hired by the

, and in 1892 she was admitted to graduate study at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Her 1894 doctorate was from the mathematics department at Yale, but its subject was astronomy, as it concerned the calculation of the orbit of a comet C/1847 T1 discovered in 1847 by Maria Mitchell. She was one of the first seven women to earn a doctorate at Yale. It has been suggested that she was "the first woman ever to earn a doctorate" in astronomy, although fellow astronomer

Dorothea Klumpke Dorothea Klumpke Roberts (August 9, 1861 in San Francisco – October 5, 1942 in San Francisco) was an American astronomer. She was Director of the Bureau of Measurements at the Paris Observatory and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honn ...

earned hers in 1893. It would be over 30 years before another woman,

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...

, became the first doctorate in astronomy at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. During this period, Palmer also determined the orbits of three other comets, and collected a large set of observations of the

moons of Jupiter There are 82 known moons of Jupiter, not counting a number of moonlets likely shed from the inner moons. All together, they form a satellite system which is called the Jovian system. The most massive of the moons are the four Galilean moons: ...

. However, she was unable to complete the extensive calculation of the orbits of the moons because of a "long and serious illness".

Later career

Palmer remained at the Yale Observatory for the rest of her life. Her work included the compilation of the ''Yale Index to Star Catalogues'', a cross-reference of the appearances of stars from the ''

Durchmusterung In astronomy, Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung (BD) is an astrometric star catalogue of the whole sky, compiled by the Bonn Observatory in Germany from 1859 to 1903. The name comes from ('run-through examination'), a German word used for ...

'' in other

star catalog A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, ...

s, which she announced in an incomplete form in a 1917 publication. For most of her time at Yale she was a research assistant, with some additional part-time work as a cataloguer in the

Yale University Library The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 milli ...

, but she became an instructor at Yale in 1923. In 1924, with

Frank Schlesinger Frank Schlesinger (May 11, 1871 – July 10, 1943) was an American astronomer. His work concentrated on using photographic plates rather than direct visual studies for astronomical research. Biography Schlesinger was born in New York City and a ...

, she published another pioneering star catalog, of the distances to 1870 stars calculated by Schlesinger's use of the principle of

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

Personal life

Palmer was

Episcopalian Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...

, and also published two books on religious topics, ''Teachers' Notes on Our Book of Worship'' (Young Churchman Co., 1914) and ''Teachers' Notes on the Church Catechism'' (Morehouse, 1918). She died of her injuries on January 30, 1924, two weeks after an automobile accident, in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

References

External links

''Teachers' Notes on Our Book of Worship''
Google Books {{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Margaretta 1924 deaths American astronomers American women astronomers Vassar College alumni Vassar College faculty Yale University alumni Yale University faculty 19th-century American Episcopalians 20th-century American Episcopalians 1862 births