Annie Jump Cannon
Week of August 1, 2000

Annie Jump Cannon, Class of 1884, astronomer extraordinaire, toward the end of her life said "In troubled days it is good to have something outside our planet, something fine and distant for comfort."

Cannon was born in Dover, Delaware, December 11, 1863. She came to Wellesley College five years after it opened, partly because of the scientific training it offered. Professor of Physics and Astronomy Sarah Frances Whiting's enthusiasm for spectroscopy - recording stars - inspired Cannon.

In 1892 Cannon did a grand tour of Europe, taking photos with a new box camera. On her return she prepared a booklet for the Blair Camera Company to use as a souvenir for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

After graduate study in physics at Wellesley College and Radcliffe, Cannon joined the staff of the Harvard College Observatory in 1897 working under world famous Professor Edward C. Pickering.

During her career Annie Jump Cannon discovered over 300 variable stars. Her specialty was classifying the characteristics of stars - over 350,000 of them. The results of her work appeared in The Henry Draper Catalogue (1918-24) and The Henry Draper Extension (1925-36).

Cannon was the first woman to be awarded the National Academy of Science's Draper Gold Medal (1931). In 1989 another Wellesley alumna, Martha P. Haynes '73, http://www.astro.cornell.edu/people/faculty/haynes.shtml won the Henry Draper Medal for work primarily conducted at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. She was only the second woman to win a Draper Medal.

For fuller information on Annie Jump Cannon, visit the "History" section of the Wellesley College Astronomy Department's web page at http://www.astro.wellesley.edu/annie/index.html

Also see the entry on Cannon in Notable American Women 1607-1950; A Biographical Dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica; and Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Vol. III).

Written by Wilma Slaight