Maria Mitchell Essay -- Essays Papers

This paper will discuss the life of Maria Mitchell and how she became the kickoff wo adult male astronomer in the United States. It will tell of where she grew up. How she climbed the ranks to succeed her goals and how she came into discovering her true passion of astronomy. By describing the events that made this courageous woman, we can happen clearly how she set an example for her gender in the Nineteenth century. Women get to eternally been at the forefronts of science, even though they have not always taken the credit for it. iodine of the defining marks of humanity is our dexterity to affect and predict our environment. Science - the creation of structure for our world - engineering - the use of structure in our world - and mathematics - the common linguistic communication of structure - all have been part of our human progress, by all step of our path to the present. Women and men together have researched and solved from each one emerging need. But in beginning of this paper, we will begin at the beginning and reveal the location of her birthplace to tell of her origins to seek the woman who broke many gender stereotypes. Maria Mitchell, an American astronomer, was born appalling 1, 1818 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA. (McPherson p.12) Her father, a member of the Quaker religion felt powerfully that girls should receive education equal to that of boys. When Maria was sixteen she was already a teaching assistant to a schoolmaster. It was this strict schoolmaster that gave Maria the reinforcement over the others, (Weatherford p.144) in that she could quickly find problems and solve them. He was Cyrus Peirce, the impart of the beginning(a) normal school in America, nowadays called a teachers college. When she was xvii she decided to open a school of her own. She rented a room and ramble an advertisement in the newspaper. The school closed after a class when Maria was offered a job as a librarian of Nantuckets atheneum Library. This job was perfect for her, because she was earning a good salary and had time to claim and read books. Her father also was hired as cashier of the peaceable Bank. (p.54) With his new job came the living quarters attached to the bank. Mr. Mitchell built an observation post on the roof and installed a brand-new four-inch telescope. He used it to do star observations for the United States Coast Guard and Maria helped her father with the measurements. One night in the Au... ...ollege. A crater on the moon was pick upd for her. Posthumously, a tablet with her name was put in the New York University Hall of Fame, her name was carved in a frieze at the Boston Public Library, and she was inducted into the subject area Womens Hall of Fame. With all of these accomplishments in her career, it is not a wonder that she became the first woman astronomer in the United States of America. By proving herself worthy of what a man could do, she excelled beyond the call of duty and met all of the criteri a that a man was supposedly only capable of doing. By having the courage and faith to do what she loved, she set the example for many women in the future to rise through the ranks of men and become just as successful. BibliographyGormley, Beatrice, Maria Mitchell The Soul of an Astronomer, Eerdmans, William B. make Company, December 1995.McPherson, Stephanie, Hetty Mitchell (Illustrator), Rooftop Astronomer A Story about Maria Mitchell Lerner print Group, The, June 1990.Mitchell Kendall, Phebe, Lee and Shepard, Maria Mitchell Life, Letters and Journals, 1896.Weatherford, Doris, American Womens History, Prentice Hall general Reference, 1994.