A Woman's Place is in the Dome:
A History of Women in Astronomy

Mary Lou West, Math/Physics, Montclair State University
973-655-7266, west@pegasus.montclair.edu
http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~west

1. Ancient times to 1900

Can you find a match?

Hypatia A) Leonid meteors
Caroline Herschel B) discovered first Am. comet
Maria Mitchell C) discovered 8 comets
Dorothea Klumpke D) classified star spectra
Henrietta Leavitt E) mathematics of astrolabe
Annie Jump Cannon F) cepheids in SMC

2. The Twentieth Century

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin A) galaxy rotation curves, DM
E. Margaret Burbidge B) chemical evolution of galaxies
Sidney Wolff C) Earth-crossing asteroids
Vera Rubin D) radioastronomy of ISM
Beatrice Tinsley E) Cold Dark Matter
Sandra Faber F) nucleosynthesis in stars
Neta Bahcall G) galaxies in a slice of universe
Jocelyn Bell Burnell H) Director of Kitt Peak Obs.
Gillian Knapp I) many comets
Nancy Roman J) chemical abundances in stars
Margaret Geller K) discovered pulsars
Eleanor Helin L) spacecraft
Linda Morabito M) great wall of galaxies
Carolyn Shoemaker N) volcano on Io

3. Women in the Space Program

Sally Ride
Judith Resnick
Kathryn Sullivan
Nancy Boggess
Shannon Lucid
Donna Shirley

4. Hope for the future: women are now 15% of astronomers

References:

Abbott, David, Astronomers, NY, Bedrick Books, 1984
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, http://cannon.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/cswa/history/history.html
Bracher, Katherine, Mercury, Jan/Feb, p 5, 1992
Conway, Jill Ker, Written by Herself, NY, Vintage Press, 1992
Howes, Ruth H., and Caroline L. Herzenberg, Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project, Philadelphia, Temple U. Press, 1999
Kidwell, Peggy A., American Scientist, May/June, p 244, 1990
Lankford, John, and Rickey L. Slavings, Physics Today, March, p 58, 1990
Malpas, Barry, http://users.erols.com/njastro/barry/bar-page/womenast.htm
McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch, Nobel Prize Women in Science, Secaucus, NJ, Citadel Press, 1998
Shirley, Donna, Managing Martians, NY, Broadway Books, 1998
Urry, Megan, Danly, Laura, Sherbert, Lisa E., Gonzaga, Shireen, Women in Astronomy, NASA, 1992

This page is http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~west/womenindome.html
Last modified on March 30, 2001