Anne Atwood Pickering (January 29, 1861--November 16, 1939), née Anne Atwood Butts, worked with the Harvard College Observatory in various ways from 1891-1924.1 She assisted with the management of Harvard’s Boyden Observatory in Peru and with the Harvard-affiliated Woodlawn observational station in Jamaica.
Anne Pickering’s affiliation with the HCO came through her husband, William, who was an astronomer and the younger brother of Edward C. Pickering, the director of the HCO from 1877-1919. In 1891, Edward appointed William as the first director of HCO’s new Boyden Observatory in Arequipa, Peru, so Anne, William, and their two young children moved to Arequipa for two years.2 Because of the limited staff at the observatory, Anne Pickering assisted her husband with both his astronomical observations and the daily management of the observatory.3 They reluctantly left Peru in 1893 when Solon Bailey replaced William as the director, due to Edward Pickering’s dissatisfaction with William’s scientific inefficiency and inability to stay within budget.4
Between 1893 and 1908, Anne Pickering spent most of her time raising her children near the HCO in Boston, and near the Flagstaff Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. She also occasionally traveled to observatories throughout the world with her husband to assist with his astronomical work.5 She also contributed to some computing work at the HCO.6 After her children were enrolled in college, she traveled extensively with her husband; her 1919 passport renewal application said that within the next several years, Pickering expected to use her passport to visit Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Turkey, and Egypt.7
In 1919, Anne and William Pickering moved to Harvard’s Woodlawn observational station on a large estate in Mandeville, Jamaica, which had been founded by William informally in 1900 and then more formally established in 1911.8 Woodlawn lost its affiliation with Harvard after William Pickering’s retirement in 1925, but he and Anne continued to live and work there for the remainder of their lives.9 At times, Anne and William were the only astronomical observers at the site, but they also invited a steady stream of guest astronomers to work with them and take advantage of Mandeville’s natural beauty and clear skies.10 In his journals, one visiting astronomer praised Anne as “a worthy companion for her illustrious husband.”11
Pickering was born on January 29, 1861 to parents Issac and Eliza Thurston Butts,12 and she married William on June 11, 1884.13 The couple had two children, a son named William Thurston Pickering born in 1887 and a daughter named Esther Pickering born in 1889, who changed her name to Esther Pickering Harland upon her marriage in 1921.14 They also had five grandchildren, one of whom was also named Anne Atwood Pickering after her grandmother.15 Anne Atwood Pickering died on November 16, 1939 in Mandeville, Jamaica at the age of 78.16
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Citations:
1- Howard Plotkin, “William H. Pickering in Jamaica: The Founding of Woodlawn and Studies of Mars,” Journal for the History of Astronomy vol. 24 (May 1993). Bibcode: 1993JHA….24..101P ↩2- Bessie Zaban Jones and Lyle Gifford Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory: The First Four Directorships, 1839-1919, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971): 308-312.↩
3- E. P. Martz, Jr., “Professor William H. Pickering 1858-1938: An Appreciation,” Popular Astronomy vol. 46 (June 1938): 299. Bitcode 1938PA…..46..299M ↩
4- Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory: 308-312.↩
5- Martz, “Professor William H. Pickering 1858-1938.”↩
6- Lindsay Smith Zrull, “Women in Glass: Women at the Harvard Observatory during the Era of Astronomical Glass Plate Photography, 1875-1975,” Journal of the History of Astronomy, vol. 52, no. 2 (2021): 133.↩
7- Stefan Hughes, Catchers of the Light: The Forgotten Lives of the Men and Women who First Photographed the Heavens - Volume 1 - Catching Space (ArtDeCiel Publishing, 2013): 155. ISBN 1467579947.↩
8- Plotkin, “William H. Pickering in Jamaica: The Founding of Woodlawn and Studies of Mars.” ↩
9- “Obituaries: Mrs. Anne A. Pickering,” The Boston Globe, November 20, 1939.↩
10- Martz, “Professor William H. Pickering 1858-1938.”↩
11- Ibid.↩
12- “Obituaries: Mrs. Anne A. Pickering.” ↩
13- Hughes, Catchers of the Light, 164.↩
14- Plotkin, “William H. Pickering in Jamaica: The Founding of Woodlawn and Studies of Mars.”↩
15- Hughes, Catchers of the Light, 164. ↩
16- “Obituaries: Mrs. Anne A. Pickering.”↩