Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 9, 2016

May 16, 1870
 
President Raymond,
 
We desire to call your attention to the fact, that, after nearly five years of what we believe to be faithful working for the good of the College, our pay is still far below that which has been offered at entrance, to the other professors, even when they have been wholly inexperienced. We respectfully ask that our salaries may be made equal to those of other professors.
 
Maria Mitchell Professor of Astronomy
 
Alida C. Avery Professor of Physiology and Hygiene


As I have noted in several posts before, Maria Mitchell was grossly underpaid for her work, as was Alida Avery though she would later be paid a bit more. The Trustees of Vassar College used Maria Mitchell’s housing situation to claim her smaller pay – she lived in the Observatory with her father (thus having “two homes”) while everyone else lived in Main Building. They claimed she had a private residence – with all her students studying and observing on top of her she had no privacy in her “own” home – and her building also used a lot of coal! This was a constant battle for Maria. When they did increase the salaries of Alida Avery and Maria, the Trustees raised the room and board fee on the two women! Equal pay for equal work was frankly never settled for these women. Today, it still isn’t as we have been seeing it screaming in headlines as women athletes are stepping up – such as women soccer players. Ever noticed how professional women basketball players need to have jobs outside of basketball? The men don’t! In 1878, under a new president, Maria presented a summary of the salary disputes to a Vassar trustee and in this summary it was revealed that both Maria and Alida Avery were so upset by the discrepancy they thought about resigning from the College. Vassar would have been a very different place without these two women.


JNLF

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As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the remarkable people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. In 1906, the MMA was given Maria Mitchell’s five-inch Alvan Clark telescope which Mitchell purchased with money raised by the Women of America in 1859. With the telescope, a fireproof observatory was needed to house it and the activities surrounding its use. A campaign was developed to raise the funds for an observatory and in approximately four months, a small observatory was built at a cost of $4,800.00. Completed in 1908, the Maria Mitchell Observatory now was in need of a permanent astronomer. An Observatory Committee was developed and chaired by Annie Jump Cannon. From 1909 through 1911, the MMA was able to employ an astronomer to teach classes, observe, provide lectures, and open the observatory for public observing for approximately a month each summer. As the demand grew, the MMA realized that a more extensive program was needed and the Astronomical Fellowship Committee began to raise funds for an Astronomical Fellowship Fund. With the support of many generous donors and a matching gift from Andrew Carnegie, by 1911 the MMA had the funds it needed to support the fellowship and began its search for an astronomer who would conduct research, provide lectures and classes, and conduct open nights for the public from mid-June through mid-December. The fellow would spend the remainder four months in research and study – every fourth year a full year of study would be spent in an American or European observatory. JNLF
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July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF
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