Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative

In June 2021, the National Air and Space Museum launched Sally’s Night, a celebration of women in STEM inspired by the life and legacy of Dr. Sally K. Ride, an astronaut, scientist, and educator. We celebrate Sally’s Night on or around the anniversary of one exciting episode of Dr. Ride’s extraordinary life, the night she looked back at Earth as the first American woman in space, on June 18, 1983. Sally’s Night is modeled after Yuri’s Night, an annual celebration of the first human in space, established in 2001 and celebrated around the world.

The aims of Sally’s Night are two-fold: to recognize the contributions of women, past and present, to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and to celebrate how science shines in all of our lives.

The Wolbach Library is an important partner in Sally’s Night. Nico Carver, Librarian for Collaborative Programs, is a member of the planning team. He has contributed energy and resources to helping the National Air and Space Museum share the mission of Sally’s Night with learners around the world.

In summer 2022, staff from the Wolbach Library convened to discuss the various terminology used throughout history to refer to the women who cared for and worked with the astronomical glass plates. Members of this group have developed a guide for telling their stories using gender inclusive language.

In summer 2022, the Wolbach Library hosted a virtual Because of Her Story intern to work on a project titled “In Fleming’s Footsteps: Recognizing and Preserving Gendered Care Work in Astronomy.”

Since the 19th century, women at the Harvard College Observatory have been the stewards of one of the most significant astronomical data sets in history—a collection of 500,000 glass plates that record the entire night sky. The Curators of Astronomical Photographs, beginning with Williamina Fleming, have organized and maintained the plates and their data, and made them accessible to researchers around the globe.

With the support of the Because of Her Story internship program, Wolbach Library began a project to recognize and preserve the stories of astronomy care workers involved in Project DASCH (Digitizing A Sky Century at Harvard). Since 2003, DASCH technicians and scanners have worked to digitize every plate and make accessible the data to researchers around the world. The restructuring of Project DASCH in 2022 was an opportune time to collect stories of the people who made this project possible.

During her internship, Rice University student Sydney Coldren interviewed 4 current and former Project DASCH contributors who have followed “in Fleming’s footsteps.” She designed an interview protocol and questions based on best practices in the field of oral history. The interviews will be available to researchers following a period of embargo. More information is available on Zenodo.

Recognizing that it will not be possible to interview all collaborators, Coldren has developed a template for Project DASCH collaborators to share their own stories. This template was inspired by Williamina Fleming’s contributions to the Time Capsule of 1900. To learn more about Coldren’s work, read her blog post.