Mitchell, Maria

Maria (1818-1889), an American astronomer. She was born at Nantucket, Massachusetts, the daughter of William Mitchell, who was himself an asstronomer. She was for a time a teacher in a private school, and was for twenty years librarian of the Nantucket Athenaeum. She became known as an astronomer in 1847 by the discovery of a new comet. She continued her astronomical studies and in 1865 was made professor of astronomy at Vassar College. She received the degree of LL. D. from Dartmouth in 1852 and from Columbia in 1887, and was the first woman honored by election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was interested during her later years in raising a fund to endow the chair of astronomy at Vassar. The fund was completed after her death, and was called in her honor the Maria Mitchell Endowment Fund.