The Remarkable Life and Career of Ellen Swallow Richards: Pioneer in Science and Technology

Chapter 5

Women Studying Together

“The old woman’s prophecy is surely being fulfilled.”

~ Ellen Swallow, November 7, 1869

Ellen listened intently to her teacher’s words. “Do not falter because you are women,” Maria Mitchell told her students. “Personally, I believe in women even more than I do in astronomy. Women must believe in other women.” After attending one of Mitchell’s college lectures, Ellen wrote to her parents, “We all came away more proud of her than before, if that was possible.”

Ellen and her classmates weren’t the only ones impressed with Maria Mitchell. The King of Denmark had been, too. He awarded her a prestigious gold medal for her 1847 discovery of “Comet Mitchell,” made when she was just twenty-nine. Vassar’s Observatory, which in 1865 was the first building completed on the campus, housed an impressive telescope. Women in America, proud of Mitchell’s achievements as an astronomer, had raised money to buy the telescope as a gift to honor her.

Ellen spent hours at a time in the Vassar Observatory, learning about the planets, stars, and comets. At last she was studying with real practicing scientists, such as Maria Mitchell, who said she could see in Ellen, “traits after her own heart.” She hoped Ellen would join her in the field of astronomy. Like Ellen, she had pushed herself hard to be where she was. Mitchell once modestly said, “I was born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinary persistency.” From an early age, both women had worked alongside their ...