Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg (1905-1993) was a student at the Harvard College Observatory from 1926-1931. She built a long, illustrious career as one of the most prominent astronomers in Canada, specializing in globular clusters of variable stars and in writing about astronomy for the general public.

Sawyer Hogg arrived at Harvard after receiving the Pickering Fellowship to fund her graduate studies in astronomy. She had already developed “a particular fondness for globular clusters as my favorite celestial objects,”¹ and she quickly delved into research dividing stellar clusters into subclasses based on the concentration of stars at their centers.² While at Harvard, she met her future husband, Frank Hogg, a fellow graduate student from Canada, and the two married in 1930.³ Sawyer Hogg received her PhD in astronomy in 1931 from Radcliffe College, the womens’ college at Harvard.⁴

After Sawyer Hogg’s graduation, she worked full-time as an unpaid volunteer at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia, where her husband worked in a paid position. In 1935, the couple began working at the University of Toronto, and in 1940, Sawyer Hogg became the director of the astronomy department at Mount Holyoke College.⁶ In 1942, she returned to teach at the University of Toronto, and she was given a full professorship there after her husband’s death in 1951.⁷ In 1955, she was appointed to the U.S. government position of program director for the astronomical section of the National Science Foundation in Washington D.C.⁸ She later returned to her teaching position at the University of Toronto and remained there until her retirement in 1976.⁹

Sawyer Hogg occupied many leadership roles over the course of her career, including being elected as the head of the American Association of Variable Star Observers in 1939,¹⁰ the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1957,¹¹ and the president of the Royal Canadian Institute in 1964.¹² She received the Annie Jump Cannon Prize in 1949 and the Rittenhouse Silver Medal in 1967,¹³ along with many other honors and awards.

Sawyer Hogg was dedicated to sharing astronomy with the wider public, and she was known as an exceptional communicator and public speaker.¹⁴ She wrote a weekly astronomy column for the Toronto Star for over thirty years, which eventually became the longest-running column in the history of the newspaper.¹⁵ In 1976, she published her book The Stars Belong to Everyone: How to Enjoy Astronomy, which was widely praised among reviewers as being accessible, readable, and interesting to all readers.¹⁶ Her astronomy classes at the University of Toronto were very popular and had large enrollments, and she lectured to many scientific organizations on her own work, her studies of the planet Mars, and even the possibility of extraterrestrial beings in other solar systems.¹⁷

Sawyer Hogg was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to Edward Everett Sawyer and Carrie Myra Sprague Sawyer. She graduated from Lowell High School in 1921 and from Mount Holyoke College in 1926.¹⁸ She married her first husband, Frank Hogg, in 1930, and he died in 1951; she married her second husband, Francis E. L. Priestley, in 1985.¹⁹ Alongside her work, Sawyer Hogg was the devoted mother of three children, daughter Sally born in 1932 and sons David and James born in 1936 and 1937, respectively, and she was often candid about the challenges of balancing her work and family life.²⁰ When she passed away in 1993 at the age of 87, she left behind ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.²¹

A fonds collection of Sawyer Hogg's personal and professional papers can be found at the University of Toronto Archives (UTARMS).

Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022

Selected Publications:

1. Hogg, Helen Sawyer. “Star Clusters.” In Encyclopedia of Physics vol. 53: Astrophysics IV: Stellar Systems. Berlin: Springer, 1959, 129-207. Bibcode: 1959HDP….53..129S
2. Sawyer, Helen B. and Harlow Shapley. “Photographic Magnitudes of Ninety-five Globular Clusters.” Harvard College Observatory Bulletin 848 (July 1927), 1-4. Bibcode: 1927BHarO.848….1S.
3. Sawyer, Helen B. “The Bright Nova of 1860 in the Globular Cluster Messier 80 and its Relation to Supernovae.” Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 32 (February 1938), 69. Bibcode: 1938JRASC..32…69S.
4. Hogg, Helen Sawyer. “Astronomy.” In The McGraw-Hill Directory and Almanac of Canada, ed. H.D. Allen. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
5. Hogg, Helen Sawyer. The Stars Belong to Everyone: How to Enjoy Astronomy. Toronto: Doubleday, 1976.
6. Hogg, Helen Sawyer. “The Universe Around Us.” In The Light and the Flame: Modern Knowledge and Religion, eds. R. C. Chalmers and John A. Irving. Whitby, Canada: Ryerson Press, 1956.

Citations:

^{1-Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took Measure of the Stars (New York: Viking, 2016), 220.↩
2- Ibid, 221.↩
3-Toni Parsons, “She Has Lived Among the Stars,” The Lowell Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts), September 27, 1976, p. 4; “Harvard Astronomers Find Love in the Stars.” Daily Boston Globe, August 27, 1930, p. 15. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/46543359↩
4- Ibid.↩
5-“Distinguished Astronomer: American College Honors Mrs. Hogg.” Richmond Hill Liberal, (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), October 9, 1952.↩
6-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), 609.↩
7-Ibid.↩
8-“Canadian Woman Astronomer to Top U.S. Government Post,” The Canadian Press, August 23, 1955.↩
9-Ogilvie and Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, 609.↩
10- “Toronto Woman Elected Head of Star Observers,” Daily Boston Globe, October 15, 1939, p. B5.↩
11- “Dr. Helen Hogg New President of Astronomers,” The Globe and Mail, February 9, 1957, p. 5.↩
12-“Trailblazing Women in the Groves of Academe,” The Gazette, October 18, 1986, p. 4.↩
13-“Toronto Astronomer Honored,” The New York Times, January 5, 1967, p. 2; “Canadian Scientist Honored,” The Associated Press, January 6, 1967.↩
14-Francis E. Carey, “Former Lowell High School Girl is Now a Leading Canadian Astronomer: Dr Helen Hogg, Who Was Miss Helen Sawyer, On the Staff of the Univ. of Toronto,” Lowell Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts), June 1, 1935, p. 20. https://newspaperarchive.com/lowell-sun-jun-01-1935-p-20/↩
15-Parsons, “She Has Lived Among the Stars.”↩
16- Zena Cherry, “After a Fashion: ‘The Stars Belong to Everyone’,” The Globe and Mail, May 20, 1976, p. F2.↩
17- Carey, “Former Lowell High School Girl is Now a Leading Canadian Astronomer.”↩
18-Ibid.↩
19- Ogilvie and Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, 609.↩
20- Eunice Gardiner, “For Astronomer, There’s Joy in Grinding Out Calculations,” The Ottawa Journal, January 15, 1971, p. 21. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/46152530↩
21- Donn Downey, “Astronomer an authority on variable stars,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 30, 1993, p. A14.↩}