The Glass Universe: The Hidden History of the Women Who Took the Measure of the Stars
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR‘A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves’ The Economist#1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel returns with a captivating, little-known true story of women in scienceIn the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the women turned to studying images of the stars captured on glass photographic plates, making extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what the stars were made of, divided them into meaningful categories for further research, and even found a way to measure distances across space by starlight .Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries,and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of a group of remarkable women whose vital contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2016
First published in the USA by Viking Books in 2016
Copyright © 2016 John Harrison and Daughter, Ltd.
The right of Dava Sobel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover images © Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.271 (D3091) (olvwork432332) / Harvard College Observatory (Harvard Women Computers, c. 1925)
Frontispiece image courtesy of Harvard University Archives
Insert page 1, bottom: Angelo Secchi, Le soleil, 1875–1877; page 2, top: Courtesy of Carbon County Museum, Rawlins, Wyoming; page 3, bottom: UAV 630.271 (E4116), Harvard University Archives; page 4, top: Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory; page 5, top: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University; page 5, bottom: Courtesy of Hastings Historical Society, New York; page 6, top: Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory; page 6, bottom: Lindsay Smith, used with permission; page 7, top: HUGFP 125.82p, Box 2, Harvard University Archives; page 7, bottom: Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; page 8, top: HUPSF Observatory (14), olvwork360662, Harvard University Archives; pages 8–9, bottom: UAV 630.271 (391), olvwork432043, Harvard University Archives; page 9, top: Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory; page 10, top: HUGFP 125.82p, Box 2, Harvard University Archives; page 10, bottom: Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory; page 11, top: HUGFP 125.36 F, Box 1, Harvard University Archives; page 11, bottom: HUGFP 125.36 F, Box 1, Harvard University Archives; page 12, bottom left and right: Courtesy of Katherine Haramundanis; page 13, top: Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives; page 13, bottom: Courtesy of Charles Reynes; page 14: Chart 1, Volume 105, Harvard College Observatory Annals; page 15, top: Courtesy of Hastings Historical Society, New York; page 15, bottom: Courtesy of Katherine Haramundanis; page 16, top: Lia Halloran, used with permission; page 16, bottom: Richard E. Schmidt, used with permission
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Source ISBN: 9780007548200
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780007548194
Version: 2017-09-14
To the ladies who sustain me:
Diane Ackerman, Jane Allen,
KC Cole, Mary Giaquinto, Sara James, Joanne Julian,
Zoë Klein, Celia Michaels, Lois Morris,
Chiara Peacock, Sarah Pillow,
Rita Reiswig, Lydia Salant, Amanda Sobel,
Margaret Thompson, and Wendy Zomparelli,
with love and thanks
CONTENTS
Copyright
Preface
PART ONE
Picture Section
Some Highlights in the History of the Harvard College Observatory
A Catalogue of Harvard Astronomers, Assistants, and Associates
Also by Dava Sobel
About the Author
About the Publisher
A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN. That was one way to look at the sheet of glass propped up in front of her. It measured about the same dimensions as a picture frame, eight inches by ten, and no thicker than a windowpane. It was coated on one side with a fine layer of photographic emulsion, which now held several thousand stars fixed in place, like tiny insects trapped in amber. One of the men had stood outside all night, guiding the telescope to capture this image, along with another dozen in the pile of glass plates that awaited her when she reached the observatory at 9 a.m. Warm and dry indoors in her long woolen dress, she threaded her way among the stars. She ascertained their positions on the dome of the sky, gauged their relative brightness, studied their light for changes over time, extracted clues to their chemical content, and occasionally made a discovery that got touted in the press. Seated all around her, another twenty women did the same.
