Maria Mitchell's Birthday!

“Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe.”
Maria Mitchell 
(1818-1889)

 We are getting ready to roll out a bunch of new and gorgeous astronomy necklaces in our shop and we discovered that it is becoming increasingly difficult to name them in a way that “makes sense” both for us, and our wonderful customers. So we decided to cure this conundrum by naming them after famous women in science. Since today would be Maria Mitchell’s 195th birthday we are starting with this listing which has been renamed “The Maria Planet Necklaces”. 

Maria Mitchell was the first acknowledged American woman astronomer, was the first professor of Astronomy at Vassar College and the first director of Vassar's observatory. In protest against slavery, she stopped wearing clothes made of cotton and was friends with various suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and co-founded the American Association for the Advancement of Women.   She disliked Victorian rigidity, and worked to change the confining “rules” for women in science. Mitchell also was a leader in the formation of the American Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW), which evolved into today’s American Association of University Women.  She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was truly a founder of modern science. To learn more, please visit the Maria Mitchell Association at http://www.mariamitchell.org/

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