Florence Cushman (1860-1940) was an astronomer and member of the Harvard Observatory staff from 1888 to 1937.1
During her forty-nine year tenure at Harvard, Cushman was primarily involved with the work conducted on the Henry Draper Catalog. She began as one of Annie Jump Cannon’s assistants, observing and classifying stars.2 She and others would ascertain positions and magnitudes of every star to be included, and then proofread the hundreds of pages of text and tables before publication. She was the main proofreader for several volumes of the Catalog. Cushman and Amy Jackson McKay were also responsible for copying over, triple checking, and then proofreading the “sheaves” of pages of magnitude measurements made by astronomers with photometers in Cambridge and Boyden Station in Peru, sent to the Observatory for checking before publication. Cushman also assisted William P Gerrish during his time with the Observatory, and he retired shortly after her.3
Cushman was born in Boston in 1860, and attended Charlestown High School in Boston.4 Known as ‘Miss Cushman’ at the Observatory, she was a “dignified galleon of a woman” and a “Lady of the Old School”, as remembered by Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin. Payne-Gaposchkin remembered that after Miss Cushman revealed she’d never ridden in “one of those newfangled automobiles,” It was Payne-Gaposhkin who gave her her first ride in one. She was apparently nervous, but enjoyed it.5
The Henry Draper Catalog is available for online viewing through HOLLIS, and in-person in multiple formats at the Wolbach Library.
This article is for Miss Florence Cushman, of the Harvard College Observatory. Not to be confused with Mrs. Florence Cushman Milner, of the Farnsworth Room, Widener Library, Harvard.
Written by Samantha Notick, 2022
Selected Publications:
Pickering, E.C., A.J. Cannon, F. Cushman, and E.S. King. “The spectrum of zeta Puppis.” Astrophysical Journal 13 (April 1901): 230-232. Bibcode: 1901ApJ….13..230P
Pickering, Edward Charles and Florence Cushman. “A catalogue of 16,300 stars ovserved with the 12-inch meridian photometer.” Annals of Harvard College Observatory vol. 74 (1913): 1-263. Bibcode: 1913AnHar..74….1P
Citations:
1-Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took Measure of the Stars (New York: Viking, 2016), 244. ↩2-Marilyn Ogilvie and Joy Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century (London: Routledge, 2000), 320.↩
3-Sobel, The Glass Universe, 244.↩
4-Ogilvie and Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, 320.↩
5- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections, ed. Katherine Haramundanis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 141.↩
