Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals

Miss Mitchell was a voluminous letter writer and an excellent correspondent, but her letters are not essays, and not at all in the approved style of the "Complete Letter Writer....

"March 2, 1857. I left Meadville this morning at six o'clock, in a stage-coach for Erie. I had, early in life, a love for staging, but it is fast dying out. Nine hours over a ro...

Miss Mitchell carried letters from eminent scientific people in this country to such persons as it would be desirable for her to know in Europe; especially to astronomers and ma...

"Sitting at the window of the hotel, he will see the scholars, the fellows, the masters of arts, and the masters of colleges passing along the streets in their different gowns....

In her life at Vassar College there was a great deal for Miss Mitchell to get accustomed to; if her duties had been merely as director of the observatory, it would have been sim...

"Eydkuhnen, Wednesday, July 30, 1873. Certainly, I never in my life expected to spend twenty-four hours in this small town, the frontier town of Prussia. Here I remembered that...

At this time, the feeling between astronomers of Great Britain and those of the United States was not very cordial. It was the time when Adams and Leverrier were contending to w...

No matter how many guests there might be in the parlor, Miss Mitchell would slip out, don her regimentals as she called them, and, lantern in hand, mount to the roof.

"No one to-day will expect to receive a letter such as reached Sir John Herschel some years ago, asking for the writer's horoscope to be cast; or such as he received at another...

Her ancestors, on both sides, were Quakers for many generations; and it was in consequence of the intolerance of the early Puritans that these ancestors had been obliged to flee...

"Jan. 1, 1855. I put some wires into my little transit this morning. I dreaded it so much, when I found yesterday that it must be done, that it disturbed my sleep. It was much e...

Partly in consequence of her Quaker training, and partly from her own indifference towards creeds and sects, Miss Mitchell was entirely ignorant of the peculiar phrases and cust...

"I had no hope, when I went to Europe, of knowing Mrs. Somerville. American men of science did not know her, and there had been unpleasant passages between the savants of Europe...

"Sweeping" the heavens--Discovery of the comet, 1847--Frederick VI. and the comet--Letters from G. P. Bond and Hon. Edward Everett--Admiral Smyth--American Academy--American Ass...

Life at Vassar College--Anxious mammas--Faculty meetings--President Hill--Professor Peirce--Burlington, Ia., and solar eclipse--Classes at Vassar--Professor Mitchell and her pup...

Letter-writing--Woman suffrage--Membership in various societies.--Women's Congress at Syracuse, N.Y.--Picnic at Medfield, Mass.--Degrees from different colleges--Published paper...

Adams and Leverrier--The discovery of the planet Neptune--Extract from papers--Professor Bond, of Cambridge, Mass.--Paris--Imperial observatory--Mons. and Mme. Leverrier--Recept...

Southern tour--Chicago--St. Louis--Scientific Academy of St. Louis--Dr. Pope--Dr. Seyffarth--Mississippi river--Sand-bars--Cherry blossoms--Eclipse of sun--Natchez--New Orleans-...

Second visit to Europe--Russia--Extracts from diary and letters--Custom-house peculiarities--Russian railways--Domes--Russian thermometers and calendars--The drosky and drivers-...

First European tour--Liverpool--London--Rev. James Martineau--Mr. John Taylor--Mr. Lassell--Liverpool observatory--The Hawthornes--Shop-keepers and waiters--Greenwich observator...

Mrs. Somerville--Berlin--Humboldt--Mrs. Mitchell's illness and death--Removal to Lynn, Mass.--Telescope presented to Miss Mitchell by Elizabeth Peabody and others--Letters from...