Capturing the Stars
Women’s Networks and the Advancement of Science at Yerkes Observatory, 1895-1940
Richard G. Kron, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics; and the College, University of Chicago
Kristine Palmieri, Postdoctoral researcher, Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago
Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Director of Humanities and Area Studies, University of Chicago Library
With support from the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.
The Capturing the Stars Research Group at the University of Chicago brings together faculty, students, and staff from departments in the Physical Sciences Division, the University of Chicago Library, and the Department of History to study the scientific and historical legacy of Yerkes Observatory.
Growing out of a broad interest in the material, intellectual, and social transformations of astronomy and astrophysics at the beginning of the twentieth century, Capturing the Stars encompasses several interlocking projects united by thematic issues in the history of knowledge-making practices across time and space. These include the Yerkes Glass Plates initiative, which focuses on digitizing and preserving the Observatory’s extensive collection of glass plates and associated logbooks and making those materials available to present-day scientific researchers, and the Women at Yerkes initiative, which reconstructs the scientific work and lived experiences of the significant cohort of women astronomers, calculators, and other researchers who worked at Yerkes during the early twentieth century.
Lauren Boegen/Yerkes Observatory. Digital edit highlighting women researchers in portrait of Yerkes Observatory staff with Albert Einstein, 1921.