Book Review: Women in British Astronomy: Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites

Abstract

WOMEN IN BRITISH ASTRONOMY Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites. Mary Bruck (Springer Science + Business Media, Berlin, 2009). Pp. xviii + 277. $129. ISBN 978-90-481-2473-2.The late Mary Bruck takes a unique approach to her topic. Rather than presenting a strictly biographical account of her approximately 25 subjects, Bruck concentrates on the interrelationships between these women, their society, scientific institutions, contemporary male scientists, other women scientists, and, most interestingly, their familial connections. Links with women astronomers in countries beyond Britain and Ireland, especially the United States, are also woven into the narrative. Bruck does not attempt to interpret her subjects through modern feminist theory. Instead, she skilfully interweaves the lives and contributions of her women astronomers into contemporary events. In spite of Briick's familiarity with both the history of astronomy and astronomy as a discipline, this book is accessible to the general interested reader; when technical details are necessary she presents them clearly.Women, as Bruck demonstrates, were important in all areas of nineteenth-century astronomy, including navigation, popularization, spectroscopy, education and observational astronomy. Many of Briick's women astronomers are little known. Her seventeen short chapters treat Margaret Flamsteed, Anne Emlyn, Margaret Bryan, Maria Short, Caroline Herschel, Mary Edwards, Mary Anne (nee Hervey) Fallows, Janet Taylor, Maria Edgeworth, Janet Marcet, Mary Somerville, Mary (Countess of Rosse), Mary Ward, Jane and Caroline Lassell, Elizabeth Juliana Sabine, Annarella (nee Arrington) Smyth, Maria Mitchell (American), Thereza Mary Llewelyn (later Story-Maskelyne), Jessie (nee Duncan) Smyth, Isobel (nee Black) Gill, Elizabeth Brown, Margaret Huggins, Agnes Clerke, Alice Everett, Ann (nee Russell) Maunder, Ethel Bellamy, Mary Evershed (nee Acworth Orr) Evershed, and Mary Adella Blagg.These women vary from the well-educated Margaret Flamsteed to the reluctant astronomer, Caroline Herschel, who had little formal education and none in science or mathematics. Both were indispensable to the success of their male relatives, in Margaret's case to her husband the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, and Caroline to her famous brother, William. But as is seen in all of her examples, the relationship is symbiotic, for the women would not have been able to prosper intellectually without the help of their male mentors. Although both Margaret Flamsteed and Caroline Herschel served as assistants to their husband or brother, each made contributions on her own. In addition to serving as an amanuensis during his lifetime, after John's death Margaret Flamsteed saw to it that his major contributions, the Historia coelestis britannica (1725) and the Atlas coelestis (1729) were published. …