Maria mitchell childhood
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Maria agreed to become both the Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College and also the Director of the Observatory.
We assume that Fidelia, who cannot read or write, is a servant.
My dear Friend: I write now merely to say that Maria discovered a telescopic comet at half-past ten on the evening of the first instant, at that hour nearly vertical above Polaris five degrees. I made a fire very quickly, prepared the coffee, baked the graham bread, toasted white bread, trimmed the solar lamp, and made another fire in the dining-room before seven o'clock.
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After her discovery, even before she received the medal, Maria Mitchell had achieved great fame. The Quaker tradition taught that both boys and girls should be educated and Maria received an education at local schools and from her father’s schools and home tutoring. They visited many places, spending some time in New Orleans, then by 23 April they were in Charleston.
In Lynn, she continued her work for the Coast Survey and Nautical Almanac. This money is raised. She rented a room in which to teach her pupils and put an advertisement in the newspaper. In 1854 the family servant left and the members of the family took it in turns to undertake their duties. Prudence returned to the United States after a while and Maria continued making visits.
She was a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Woman, the first woman member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and one of the first women members of the American Philosophical Society. I omitted the corrections of parallax and aberrations, not intending to get more than a rough approximation, I find to my sorrow that they do not agree with those from my own observations.
As was later observed in The Great Experiment, A Chronicle of Vassar History, “the students’ observations were printed in the official report of Professor J.H.C. She could not drill; she would not drive. He was interested in the sciences and one of the first buildings planned for the new college was an observatory. It does not bear illumination, but Maria has obtained its right ascension and declination, and will not suffer me to announce it.
It was but half light, and I made a hasty toilet. She computed positions of the planets, particularly Venus, for the Almanac which was designed to be used by sailors in navigation.