Anne Sewell Young

Anne Sewell Young
Born January 2, 1871
Bloomington, Wisconsin
Died August 15, 1961(1961-08-15) (aged 90)
Claremont, California
Education Carleton College
Columbia University
Scientific career
Fields Astronomy
Institutions Whitman College
Mount Holyoke College
Thesis Rutherford Photographs of the Stellar Clusters h or x Persei

Anne Sewell Young (January 2, 1871 – August 15, 1961) was an American astronomer. She was an astronomy professor at Mount Holyoke College for 37 years.

Biography

Anne Sewell Young was born in Bloomington, Wisconsin on January 2, 1871 to Reverend Albert Adams Young and Mary Sewell.[1]

She earned a B.L. from Minnesota's Carleton College in 1892.[2] She then went to Walla Walla, Washington and taught mathematics at Whitman College for three years before returning to Carleton, earning her M.S. in 1897.[2][3] She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1906. Her dissertation assessed measurements of early photographs and determined that the constellation Perseus had twice as many stars as previously thought.[4]

Young started her career at Mount Holyoke College in 1898.[2] She was appointed director of the John Payson Williston Observatory, where she supervised an observational program tracking sunspots. She organized events at the observatory for Mount Holyoke students and in 1925 arranged for the student body to take the train to central Connecticut to observe the total solar eclipse.[4] In 1929, Young identified the comet 31P/Schwassmann–Wachmann with an object that had been misidentified as the minor planet "Adelaide" (A904 EB) in 1904.[5]

Young had a pronounced interest in variable stars and corresponded on the subject with Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory.[4] She was one of the eight founding members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and contributed over 6,500 variable star observations to the organization.[6] She was elected the organization's President in 1923.[4]

Young retired in 1936 and moved to Claremont, California with her sister. Young died there on August 15, 1961.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Hogg, Helen Sawyer. "Obituary Notices: Anne Sewell Young". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 3 (4): 355–357. Bibcode:1962QJRAS...3..355.
  2. 1 2 3 "In the Path of the Sun's Eclipse". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. May 26, 1900. p. 11. Retrieved November 10, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ Creese, Mary R.S. (1998). Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-585-27684-7.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Wessling, Susan (2002). "Young, Anne Sewell (1871–1961)". In Commire, Anne. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications. ISBN 0-7876-4074-3. (Subscription required (help)).
  5. ↑ "Long 'Lost' Planet Found Masquerading as Comet". Oakland Tribune. June 21, 1929. p. 31. Retrieved November 9, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Bracher, Katherine (2012). "Anne S. Young: Professor and Variable Star Observer Extraordinaire" (PDF). Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. 40: 24–30. Bibcode:2012JAVSO..40...24B.
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