Jenka Mohr (b.1902) was a research assistant and lecturer with the Harvard College Observatory from 1927 to around 1940.
While with the Harvard Observatory, Mohr studied galaxies, nebulae, variable stars, and star clusters.1 She gave lectures on the subjects at several ‘open nights’ hosted by the Observatory.2 With Harlow Shapley and Virginia McKibben, she published two articles related to these subjects, and the Large Magellanic Cloud. In 1932 Mohr published a well-known account of the Harvard Observatory, and a bibliography of Edward Charles Pickering and Solon Irving Bailey, respectively. Mohr also made at least one trip to work at the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket.
Mohr was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant parents from Austria and Poland.3 In an oral history with Leo Goldberg of Harvard, she was described as “very sharp and personable”.4 When the Observatory put on its annual HMS Pinafore parody play in 1929, the ‘Observatory Pinafore’, Mohr played violin and conducted the music.5
Written by Samantha Notick, 2022
Selected Publications:
1. “A Brief Account of the Harvard Observatory” Written by Jenka Mohr, 1932. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. Available for in-library viewing at the John G. Wolbach Library by request.
2. “Bibliographies of Edward Charles Pickering, 1846-1919 and Solin Irving Bailey, 1854-1931” Compiled by Jenka Mohr, 1932. Pub. National Academy of Sciences, District of Columbia. Available for online viewing through HathiTrust.
3. “Summary of a Variable Star Survey in an External Galaxy'' Research article written by Harlow Shapley and Jenka Mohr, 1933. Originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Available by request through the John G. Wolbach library.
4. “Galactic and Extragalactic Studies: VII. Magnitudes of Forty Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud” research article written by Harlow Shapley, Virginia McKibben, and Jenka Mohr, 1940. Originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Available by request through the John G. Wolbach library.
Citations:
1- “Women as Stargazers Prove Worth in Field of Research: Early Worker Excel at Camera Work,” Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA) Dec 28, 1936 : “Harvard Astronomers To Attend Meetings of Inter. Union in Sweden,” The Cambridge Tribune (Cambridge, MA), July 29, 1938. Accessed June 2022. ↩2-“Harvard ‘Open Nights’ Lectures Begin Monday,” The Boston Globe (Boston, MA), Nov 6, 1936.↩
3-U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1930. United States Federal Census. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Accessed using Ancestry.com, June 2022.↩
4-Leo Goldberg, interviewed by Owen Gingerich, August 9, 1983, Transcript, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/28196-1↩
5- “Resurrected from Files of Long Ago,” The Cambridge Chronicle (Cambridge, MA) January 17, 1930.↩