Imogen Willis Eddy (June 20, 1842-September 4, 1904)1 worked at the Harvard College Observatory for approximately 15 years from 1889-1904.
Eddy’s work at the HCO focused on using glass plate photographs taken with Harvard’s meridian circle instrument to make mathematical calculations about the position of stars, with the eventual goal of incorporating the calculations into an international catalogue of stars.2 Eddy had a strong grasp of mathematics; in an interview with a journalist in 1896, she said that “to be really effective, a computer must understand algebra, geometry, trigonometry, the principles of astronomy and the instruments.”3 In a letter to her brother early on in her time at the HCO, she said that she “never liked arithmetic but the higher mathematics and the problems solved by them, of the movements of the stars are quite another thing. I always read and studied everything I could find about astronomy and now I am daily learning more & more of the practical part of it.”4 Several sources praised her skill and value as a member of the HCO staff.5
Eddy was born in 1842 in Oswego, New York as the eldest daughter of famous poet and author Nathaniel Parker Willis and his first wife, Mary Stace Willis.6 She had two half-sisters and two half-brothers.7 As a child, Eddy’s nanny was Harriet Jacobs, and Eddy was mentioned under a pseudonym in Jacobs’ famous 1861 autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.8 As an adult, Eddy lived for some time in a Cambridge boarding house owned by Jacobs.9
Eddy was described as a “slight, delicate blonde with nearsighted gray eyes” and as “an interesting conversationalist and a keen observer.”10 She married a doctor from New York but was widowed early.11 She had one daughter named Cornelia Willis Eddy, nicknamed Nellie and later known by her married name, Jenkins,12 who was born in 1867 or 1868.13 In 1875, she was living on Madison Avenue in New York City,14 and she lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts from at least 1878-1902.15 She died in an elevator accident in Boston on September 4th, 1904 at the age of 62.16
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Citations:
1-“Woman Astronomer Killed”, Boston Evening Transcript, September 6, 1904; “Imogen Willis Eddy,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42368895/imogen-eddy.↩2-“Women See Stars,” The Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1896; “Woman Astronomer Killed.”↩
3-“Women See Stars.”↩
4-Paula Tarnapol Whitacre, “’Incidents’ author Harriet Jacobs crossed paths with Imogen Eddy, an early Harvard astronomer.” Cambridge Day, August 23, 2021, https://www.cambridgeday.com/2021/08/23/incidents-author-harriet-jacobs-...↩
5-“The Family of N. P. Willis,” The New York Times, November 9, 1901; “Woman Astronomer Killed.”↩
6-“Woman Astronomer Killed.”↩
7-Ibid.↩
8-Whitacre, “’Incidents’ author Harried Jacobs cross paths with Imogen Eddy.”↩
9-Ibid.↩
1-“Brilliant Mrs. Eddy,” Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee), January 24, 1891.↩
11-“The Family of N. P. Willis.”↩
12-“Woman Astronomer Killed.”↩
13- “Deaths”, Boston Evening Transcript, April 15, 1901↩
14- “Personal,” Chicago Tribune, January 24, 1875.↩
15Federal Census 1880, 1900; Cambridge City Directory 1878, 1880-1, 1888-91, 1895-8, 1901-2↩
16-“Woman Astronomer Killed”, Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT), September 7, 1904.↩
