Harvard Computers

The Harvard Computers were a team of women working as <a href="/facts/Skilled_worker/aU7cn9TL">skilled workers</a> to process <a href="/facts/Astronomy/0ArJVM1p">astronomical</a> data at the <a href="/facts/Harvard_College_Observatory/VaeaI4U6">Harvard College Observatory</a> in <a href="/facts/Cambridge%2c_Massachusetts/k9UMIJ7U">Cambridge, Massachusetts</a>, <a href="/facts/United_States/P0sCdLe5">United States</a>. The team was directed by <a href="/facts/Edward_Charles_Pickering/JH9WC1rd">Edward Charles Pickering</a> (1877 to 1919) and, following his death in 1919, by <a href="/facts/Annie_Jump_Cannon/jDKxrhgA">Annie Jump Cannon</a>.

<blockquote>The women were challenged to make sense of these patterns by devising a scheme for sorting the stars into categories. <a href="/facts/Annie_Jump_Cannon/jDKxrhgA">Annie Jump Cannon's</a> success at this activity made her famous in her own lifetime, and she produced a stellar classification system that is still in use today. <a href="/facts/Antonia_Maury/LWBepMAr">Antonia Maury</a> discerned in the spectra a way to assess the relative sizes of stars, and <a href="/facts/Henrietta_Swan_Leavitt/FI5xRzHN">Henrietta Leavitt</a> showed how the cyclic changes of certain variable stars could serve as distance markers in space.</blockquote>
Other computers on the team included <a href="/facts/Mary_Anna_Draper/ocq6rc6t">Mary Anna Draper</a>, <a href="/facts/Williamina_Fleming/KL7uxDgL">Williamina Fleming</a>, <a href="/facts/Anna_Winlock/rcIh96Pd">Anna Winlock</a>, and <a href="/facts/Florence_Cushman/qMYSF9fM">Florence Cushman</a>. Although these women started primarily as calculators, they made significant contributions to astronomy, much of which they published in research articles.

Harvard Computers open-in-new

Harvard Computers