Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and JournalsMitchell, Maria
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Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals
Mitchell, Maria
Astronomers -- United States -- Biography; Mitchell, Maria, 1818-1889; Women astronomers -- United States -- Biography
"The main purpose of the meeting was to try to affect public sentiment
to such an extent as to lead to the defeat of a man who, when the
subject of woman suffrage was before the Legislature, said that the
women had all they wanted now--that they could get anything with 'their
eyes as bright as the buttons on an angel's coat.' Lucy Stone, Mr.
Blackwell, Rev. Mr. Bush, Miss Eastman, and William Lloyd Garrison
spoke.
"Garrison did not look a day older than when I first saw him, forty
years ago; he spoke well--they said with less fire than he used in his
younger days. Garrison said what every one says--that the struggle for
women was the old anti-slavery struggle over again; that as he looked
around at the audience beneath the trees, it seemed to be the same scene
that he had known before.
"... We had a very good bit of missionary work done at our table (at
Vassar) to-day. A man whom we all despise began to talk against voting
by women. I felt almost inclined to pay him something for his remarks.
"A group from the Washington Women Suffrage Association stopped here
to-day.... I liked Susan B. Anthony very much. She seemed much worn, but
was all alive. She is eighteen months younger than I, but seems much
more alert. I suppose brickbats are livelier than logarithms!"
Miss Mitchell was a member of several learned societies.
She was the first woman elected to membership of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, whose headquarters are at Boston.
In 1869 she was chosen a member of the American Philosophical Society, a
society founded by Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science made her a
member in the early part of its existence. Miss Mitchell was one of the
earliest members of the American Association for the Advancement of
Women. At one period she was president of the association, and for many
years served as chairman of the committee on science. In this latter
capacity she reached, through circulars and letters, women studying
science in all parts of the country; and the reports, as shown from year
to year, show a wonderful increase in the number of such women. She was
a member, also, of the New England Women's Club, of Boston, and after
her annual visit at Christmas she entertained her students at Vassar
with descriptions of the receptions and meeting of that body. She was
also a member of the New York Sorosis. She received the degree of Ph.D.
from Rutgers Female College in 1870, her first degree of LL.D. from
Hanover College in 1832, and her last LL.D. from Columbia College in
1887.
Miss Mitchell had no ambition to appear in print, and most of her
published articles were in response to applications from publishers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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