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Annie Jump Cannon, 1863 - 1941
Summary
Annie Jump Cannon's academic record is very impressive for a woman of her time. She:
- graduated from Wellesley College (1884),
- became a “special student” of astronomy at Radcliffe College (1894),
- received an M.A. from Wellesley College (1907),
- received an honorary doctorate from the University of Delaware (1918),
- was the first woman to receive a doctor of astronomy degree from Groningen University (1921),
- was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Oxford (1925),
- received an honorary doctorate from Wellesley College (1925),
- received an honorary doctorate from Oglethorpe University (1935), and
- received an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College (1937).
While at Wellesley College Annie was a physics major because an astronomy major was not available at that time; Wellesley College was only five years old. It had a strong science department because founder Henry Fowler Durant consulted Professor Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, in order to create an undergraduate physics laboratory similar to the one that he had created at M.I.T. He also chose Sarah Whiting as lab director. Annie was inspired by Sarah Whiting to learn about spectroscopy, which became the foundation for her life work of stellar classification. While at Wellesley she did a fair share of observing. She later returned to Wellesley as a postgraduate assistant before starting a career in astronomy at the Harvard College Observatory.
The first picture below is of Annie observing in 1895. At the time Wellesley students observed the heavens through a 4-inch Browning telescope that could be set up on the north or south porch of College Hall. This telescope was used until 1900.
In the second picture Annie is located third from the left. This picture was taken during the 1895-1896 academic year. This is the laboratory of then Wellesley professor and renowned physicist and astronomer Sarah Whiting. She sought to ensure that her students had all the latest equipment. As a result Wellesley College had one of the best physics laboratories in the country during the 1870's.
The third picture is of Annie Cannon at Oxford in 1925. She was the first woman to ever receive an honorary doctorate from this institution. She was given this honor due to her contributions to astrophysics. It was a new science at the time and her classification system, which is still used today, was quite an achievement. At the time she had classified over a quarter of a million stars! This was the height of her academic achievements.
In the 'Image Gallery' section below, you are invited to click on any of the smaller thumbnail images which in turn leads to larger version that opens in its own window.
Image Gallery
Annie Cannon
At the telescope
1895 - 4" Browning
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Annie Cannon
In the laboratory
1895/6 academic year
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Annie Cannon
Oxford University
1925 honorary doctorate
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Credit
The images above have been supplied by Whitin Observatory, Wellesley College, Wellesley MA 02481, the work originally Authored by Logan Hennessey '00, ASTR 210 and created on December 10th, 1998. Please respect the intellectual copyright of the original author and do not alter or redistribute the work for commercial purposes. Original web site link: http://www.wellesley.edu/Astronomy/Annie/education.html
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