Alice Hall Farnsworth (October 19, 1893 – October 1, 1960) was an American astronomer. She was director of John Payson Williston Observatory at Mount Holyoke College from 1936 until her retirement in 1957.
Alice Hall Farnsworth | |
|---|---|
 Alice Hall Farnsworth (1940) | |
| Born | October 16, 1893 |
| Died | October 1, 1960 (aged 66) Newton, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Mount Holyoke College, B.S. (1916) |
| Occupation | Astronomer |
| Years active | 1920–1957 |
| 3rd Director of the John Payson Williston Observatory at Mount Holyoke College | |
| In office 1936–1957 | |
| Preceded by | Anne Sewell Young |
| Succeeded by | Mary L. Connelley |
| 8th President of the American Association of Variable Star Observers | |
| In office 1929–1931 | |
| Preceded by | David B. Pickering |
| Succeeded by | Harriet Williams Bigelow |
Early life
editAlice Hall Farnsworth was born in Williamsburg, Massachusetts,[1] the youngest of four children of Frederick Tudor Farnsworth and Anna Caroline Tufts Farnsworth. As a child, she was an active reader of St. Nicholas magazine, submitting contest entries and winning prizes.[2]
Farnsworth studied astronomy under Anne Sewell Young at Mount Holyoke College, earning her bachelor's degree in 1916; one of Young's other notable students at the time was astronomer Helen Sawyer Hogg. Farnsworth pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago, where she earned a master's degree in 1917 and a Ph.D. in 1920. Her dissertation, A comparison of the photometric fields of the 6-inch doublet: 24-inch reflector, and 40-inch refractor of the Yerkes Observatory, with some investigation of the astrometric field of the reflector (University of Chicago Press 1926),[3] was based on her research at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.[4][5][6]
Career
editFarnsworth was elected to the membership of the American Astronomical Society in 1917. She returned to the astronomy department at Mount Holyoke[7] after completing her doctorate. She taught astronomy courses,[8] including darkroom skills. From 1929-1931 she was president of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. From 1930-1931 she was a visiting researcher and Martin Kellogg Fellow[9] at Lick Observatory in California.[10] She succeeded Anne S. Young as director of the Williston Observatory in 1936.[4] In 1937, she was promoted to the rank of full professor.[11] From 1938 to 1941, she served on the council of the American Astronomical Society.[12] During a sabbatical in 1940-1941, she traveled to Brazil to observe a solar eclipse, in a small team of scientists led by Charles Hugh Smiley;[13] she wrote about her time in South America for Popular Astronomy.[14]
Farnsworth's research involved stars in a region of the constellation Cassiopeia, and stellar photometry; she also continued the Williston Observatory's studies of sunspots and lunar occultations.[15][4] Publications by Farnsworth included "Proper Motions of Certain Long Period Variable Stars" (The Astronomical Journal 1921, with Anne Sewell Young),[16] Zone + 45 ̊ of Kapteyn's selected areas: photographic photometry for 1550 stars (University of Chicago Press 1927, with John Adelbert Pankhurst),[17] "Measurement of Effective Wave-Lengths with the Recording Microphotometer" (Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1931),[18] A study of effective wave-lengths with the recording microphotometer ; Color changes in variable stars (University of California Press 1933),[19] and "Stellar Spectra and Colors in Milky Way Region in Cassiopeia" (Astrophysical Journal Supplement 1955).[20]
Personal life
editAlice Hall Farnsworth died in 1960, aged 66 years, in Newton, Massachusetts.[21][22] Her papers are in the Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b Farnsworth Papers Archived 2019-06-08 at the Wayback Machine, Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections.
- ^ Dodge, Mary Mapes (1909). "St. Nicholas League". St. Nicholas. 36: 95, 287, 383, 562.
- ^ Farnsworth, Alice H (1926). A comparison of the photometric fields of the 6-inch doublet: 24-inch reflector, and 40-inch refractor of the Yerkes observatory, with some investigation of the astrometric field of the reflector. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 8061792.
- ^ a b c Hazen, Martha L. (1985). "Anne S. Young and Alice H. Farnsworth: 58 Years of Astronomy At Mount Holyoke College". The Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. 14 (2): 49–51. Bibcode:1985JAVSO..14...49H.
- ^ "Alice Hall Farnsworth 1916". MHC Postcards. Archived from the original on 2014-10-03. Retrieved 2019-06-03.
- ^ Payne, William Wallace; Willard, Charlotte R.; Wilson, Herbert Couper; Wilson, Ralph Elmer; Gingrich, Curvin Henry (November 1920). "Notes from Yerkes Observatory". Popular Astronomy. 28: 563.
- ^ Lankford, John; Slavings, Ricky L. (1997-05-15). American Astronomy: Community, Careers, and Power, 1859-1940. University of Chicago Press. p. 311. ISBN 9780226468860.
- ^ Annual Catalogue of the Mt. Holyoke Seminary and College in South Hadley, Mass. Mount Holyoke College. 1917. p. 14.
- ^ Lick Astronomical Department, University of California. University of California Press. 1930. p. 1.
- ^ Lankford, John; Slavings, Ricky L. (1997-05-15). American Astronomy: Community, Careers, and Power, 1859-1940. University of Chicago Press. pp. 317, 334. ISBN 9780226468860.
- ^ "Mount Holyoke Promotes Two". The New York Times. October 20, 1937. p. 11 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "Meetings of the AAS: 1937-1942 | Historical Astronomy Division". American Astronomical Society. Retrieved 2019-06-03.
- ^ "Special Camera to 'Shoot' Sun". The Monroe News-Star. August 21, 1940. p. 10. Retrieved June 3, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Farnsworth, Alice H. (1941). “An Astronomer’s Trip to South America,” Popular Astronomy 49: 405–418.
- ^ "Scientists in the News". Science. 129 (3362): 1540–1541. 1959. Bibcode:1959Sci...129.1540.. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 1757669.
- ^ Farnsworth, Alice H.; Young, Anne S. (August 1921). "Proper Motions of Certain Long Period Variable Stars". The Astronomical Journal. 33: 194. Bibcode:1921AJ.....33..194Y. doi:10.1086/104468.
- ^ PARKHURST, John Adelbert; FARNSWORTH, Alice Hall (1927). Zone +45° of Kapteyn's Selected Areas. Photographic photometry for 1550 stars, etc. Chicago. OCLC 563557850.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Farnsworth, Alice H. (1931). "Measurement of Effective Wave-Lengths with the Recording Microphotometer". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 43 (255): 340–344. Bibcode:1931PASP...43..340F. doi:10.1086/124154. ISSN 0004-6280. JSTOR 40668844. S2CID 121512802.
- ^ Farnsworth, Alice H (1933). A study of effective wave-lengths with the recording microphotometer ; Color changes in variable stars. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 35980214.
- ^ Farnsworth, A. H. (1955). "Stellar Spectra and Colors in a Milky way Region in Cassiopeia". Astrophysical Journal Supplement. 2: 123–140. Bibcode:1955ApJS....2..123F. doi:10.1086/190018.
- ^ "Obituary: Dr. Alice H. Farnsworth". The North Adams Transcript. October 3, 1960. p. 16. Retrieved June 3, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Dr. A. H. Farnsworth". The Boston Globe. October 3, 1960. p. 19. Retrieved June 3, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
External links
edit- A photograph of Alice Hall Farnsworth with a student, Martha Hazen, working at (and lit by) a light table in Williston Observatory, in the early 1950s.
- A photograph of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, including Alice Hall Farnsworth, taken at Yerkes Observatory in 1925, from the University of Chicago Library.
- Robert Dale Hall, "Education of American research astronomers, 1876-1941" (Ph.D. dissertation, Oregon State University 1999).
- Donald E. Osterbrock, Yerkes Observatory 1892-1950: The Birth, Near Death, and Resurrection of a Scientific Research Institution (University of Chicago Press 1997).
