Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming (1857-1911)
Williamina Paton Stevens was born in Dundee, Scotland, on May 15, 1857. Williamina's talent in school was obvious from an early age, and at age fourteen she began teaching in the Dundee public schools. In 1877, she married James Fleming, and a year later the couple immigrated to Boston to start a new life in America. In 1879, when she was pregnant with her first child, James left her and their unborn son.
Only twenty-three years old and a single mother, Williamina found employment as the housekeeper for Edward Pickering, a professor of astronomy at Harvard and the director of the Harvard College Observatory. Irritated by the poor work done by his male employees at the observatory, Pickering reportedly declared that his maid could do a better job, and shortly thereafter in 1881 he hired Fleming to do some clerical work and mathematical calculations at the Observatory.
She quickly proved Pickering right by developing a new system to classify stars according to their spectra, or the unique pattern of lines caused by the refraction of a star's light through a prism. Thanks to her new classification system, which became known as the "Pickering-Fleming System," Fleming catalogued over 10,000 stars within the next nine years. In 1890, she published her findings in the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra. Pickering eventually put her in charge of editing all studies published by the Harvard Observatory and allowed Fleming to hire dozens of young women to support her expanding stellar exploration efforts. One of these was young women was Henrietta Swan Leavitt (see Miss Leavitt's Stars, by George Johnson), who later discovered how to measure the universe. In 1898, the Harvard Corporation appointed Fleming to be the curator of astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory, making her the first woman to hold this important position.
During the course of her career, Fleming discovered 10 novae, 52 nebulae, and 310 variable stars- a remarkable achievement for someone without a formal education in astronomy. Recognizing her contributions to the discipline, in 1906 the Royal Astronomical Society elected Fleming to its organization, the first time that prestigious body admitted an American woman. In 1910, she reached the pinnacle of her career by discovering white dwarfs, which are very hot and dense stars that are white in color. On May 21, 1911, Fleming died of pneumonia in Boston, Massachusetts.
OCP Resources
Manuscripts
The journal of Williamina Paton Fleming is housed in the Harvard University Archives.
Fleming, Williamina. Journal of Williamina Paton Fleming. March 1-April 18, 1900. (22 leaves)
PhotographsPhotographs of Williamina Paton Fleming and her astronomical observatory are housed in the Harvard University Archives.
View images of Williamina Fleming and the Harvard College Observatory
. (7 photographs).Web Resources
Distinguished Women of the Past and Present.
Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming. 1999.
Women in American History. Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming. 1999.