An Exhibition of the Development and Impact of Higher Education in Astronomy for Women at the University of Michigan
Harriet Williams Bigelow
Ph.D. in Astronomy (1904)
Harriet Williams Bigelow (born June 7, 1870, Fayetteville, New York, U.S.-died June 27, 1934, Soerabaja, Java Indonesia) was one of the first women astronomers to study in the Detroit Observatory. After her time spent at the University of Michigan, Bigelow went on to become a prominent astronomical assistant, instructor, faculty professor, and Head of the Department of Astronomy at the Smith College Observatory in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf6-03446-054], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
Bigelow's goal was not to “turn out astronomers” but to instead “make girls intelligent about the universe in which they live.” (1)
Early Life & Education
Bigelow was born to Dana Williams and Katharine Huntington Bigelow. As she spent the majority of her childhood in Fayetteville, Pitcher, and Utica, New York, her father worked as a pastor of a Presbyterian church. Harriet Bigelow attended public schools in the area until she graduated from Utica Free Academy in 1889. Upon graduation, Bigelow moved to Massachusetts and attended Smith College to pursue a Bachelor of Arts until 1893. It was during this time that Harriet Bigelow met and studied astronomy under Mary E. Byrd, the first director of the Smith College Observatory (1).
Why Study Astronomy?
And Bigelow's Steps to Success
When asked the question of why she decided to pursue astronomy, Bigelow replied, “My dormitory window faced the observatory, and I thought it would be fun to help turn the dome around”(1). Ironically, not only did Bigelow “turn the dome around”, she later went on to devote her entire career to astronomy. Nevertheless, it is evident that Harriet Bigelow’s work in her undergraduate years made an impression on Director Mary Byrd. After returning to New York for a year and teaching at Granger Place school in the city Canandaigua, Bigelow received a job offer from Byrd to be her assistant in astronomy at the Smith Observatory. As an astronomical assistant from 1896-1901, Harriet Bigelow aided Byrd in her development of the manuscript for a laboratory manual named A Laboratory Manual In Astronomy (published in 1899) (2) and a handbook named First Observations in Astronomy (published in 1913) (3). In the preface of the laboratory manual, Mary Byrd credited Harriet Bigelow’s contributions to her work when she noted “the help given by my assistant, Miss Harriet W. Bigelow, has been invaluable.”(2)
Career Path and Innovation
From Publications to Positions
In 1901, Harriet Bigelow decided to advance her education when she went to the University of Michigan and completed a Ph.D. in 1904 (4). At the University, Bigelow studied in the Detroit Observatory and was under the direction of the observatory’s director Asaph Hall Jr. when she completed her dissertation on "Declinations of Certain North Polar Stars Determined with the Meridian Circle"(5). In 1902, in one of her numerous publications at the observatory, Bigelow investigated the structure of the objective glass of the Detroit Observatory’s Meridian Circle. By means of devices that produced plane-polarized light known as Nicol prisms, she determined the flexure (curvature) of the glass using reflected and direct observations.(6) Upon completion of her investigations, Harriet Bigelow returned to Massachusetts in 1904 to work as an instructor, associate professor, professor (1911) and director (upon the resignation of Director Mary Byrd) of the Smith College Observatory.
Harriet Bigelow’s teaching style at the Smith College Observatory can be found in her publication of The Teaching of Astronomy in 1928. In this text, Bigelow emphasizes that she aimed at “something more than simply teaching Astronomy”(7). Through this and other statements made by Bigelow, it is evident that she was influenced by strategies of the laboratory method that her predecessor Mary Byrd had previously pioneered.
Avocations
Alongside her professional appointments at Smith College, Harriet Bigelow also served as vice president and president of the American Association of Variable Star Observers and councilor for the American Astronomical Society (1931-33). At the time of her death she was serving a term as councilor for the American Astronomical Society (1932-34)(8).
Harriet Bigelow can be found in many photographs taken at the Annual and Spring Conferences of the American Association of Variable Star Observers as well as in images of the 1923 Solar Eclipse Expedition to Santa Catalina Island in California.
Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf6-00433], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
A Tragic End
According to an excerpt from a New York Times article published on June 30, 1934, she suffered a sudden “stroke of apoplexy” and died in Darmo Hospital in Soerabaja, Java (9). Bigelow was on a year-long sabbatical trip to travel the world, meet her sister and family in Manila, and visit the Observatories of South Africa. She was 64 years of age at the time of her tragic death on June 27, 1934.(10)
A Historical Account of Harriet W. Bigelow
From Astronomer Marjorie Williams
The sentiment of Marjorie Williams on Harriet Bigelow’s death is found in this excerpt from her biographical account:
Although a great shock to her family and friends, the sudden death of Harriet W. Bigelow seems a peculiarly fitting end to a life so full of energy and enthusiasm. To those who knew her it was inconceivable that a time should come when she should become ill, unable to spend long evenings at the observatory, or to walk briskly across the campus. How could she have become reconciled to being a care to others- she who never saved herself, or seemed to have a thought for her own comfort. How much better that her life should come to an end during a pleasant voyage, at the end of a happy year spent with friends and loved ones.(1)