Annie Jump Cannon

Annie Jump Cannon ( December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was a US astronomer.

Education

At Wilmington Conference Academy, Annie showed promise as a student, particularly in mathematics. In 1880 she was sent to Wellesley College, Massachusetts, one of the top academic schools for women in the U.S. The cold winter climate in the area led to repeated infections, and in one such bought she was stricken with scarlet fever. As a result, she became almost completely deaf.

Related Topics:
1880 - Wellesley College - Scarlet fever - Deaf

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She graduated in 1884 with a degree in physics and returned home. Uninterested in the limited career opportunities available to women, she grew bored and restless. Her partial hearing loss made socializing difficult, and she was generally older and better educated than most of the unmarried women in the area. She had made a trip to Europe in 1892 to photograph the solar eclipse, but returned with her situation little improved.

Related Topics:
1884 - Physics - Europe - 1892 - Solar eclipse

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In 1893, however, her mother passed away. Life in the home grew more difficult, and she finally wrote to her former instructor at Wellesley, Professor of Physics and Astronomy Sarah Frances Whiting, to see if there was a job opening. Sarah hired her as her assistant, which allowed Annie to take graduate courses at the college. The school had started offering a course in astronomy, which was her true calling. While at Wellesley, Professor Whiting inspired her to learn about spectroscopy. Also during those years, Cannon developed her skills in the new art of photography.

Related Topics:
1893 - Sarah Frances Whiting - Spectroscopy - Photography

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She decided to enroll at Radcliffe women's college at Harvard, which had access to the Harvard College Observatory. In 1896 she was hired as Edward C. Pickering's assistant at the Harvard observatory. She returned to Wellesley in 1894 for graduate study in physics and astronomy. By 1907 she received an M.A. from Wellesley.

Related Topics:
Harvard College Observatory - 1896 - Edward C. Pickering - 1894 - Astronomy - 1907 - M.A.

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