| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics. By Renée Bergland. (Boston: Beacon, 2008. xviii, 300 pp. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8070-2142-2.)
Renée Bergland's new work on the American astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) is more than a biography, although it covers the details of her life very well. By presenting Mitchell's seventy-one-year life in the context of contemporary science, literary history, social and religious milieu, and gender relationships, Bergland has constructed a rich cultural history of the time. She carefully examines those disparate subjects to explain how they combined to mold Mitchell into a respected astronomer.	1
Many factors influenced the kind of iconic woman astronomer that Mitchell was to become, including characteristics of Nantucket Island where she was raised, the constitution and interests of her family, her Quaker background, and her unconventional education. Her book-loving Quaker parents were strong supporters of education for girls and women as well as for boys and men. They encouraged their children to question accepted ideas and provided hands-on experiences with the natural world. William Mitchell, Maria's father, had many jobs, but his favorite one required him to collect astronomical data, and he soon became an astronomer with a national reputation. Maria proved to be a talented asset to her father, became his preferred assistant, and later outshone him. In 1849 she became a computer for the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, a position that she held for nineteen years.	. . .

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