Jennie Thayer Rugg (1869-1949) worked at the Harvard College Observatory from 1887 to 1889.1 She was one of four women to join the HCO in 1887, along with Annie Masters, Nellie Storin, and Louisa Wells, bringing the total number of women computers to fourteen.2 While at the HCO, she assisted Williamina Fleming with various aspects of her astronomy work.
Rugg was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 22, 1869 to Samuel F. Rugg, who worked variously as a coal dealer, an auctioneer, and a real estate speculator, and Mary C. Rugg, who worked as a police matron and a teacher.3 When she was a child, Ruggs’ family moved often within Cambridge and were listed at a new address in nearly every annual issue of the Cambridge Directory.4 Ruggs graduated from the English High School in 1887 as the historian of her graduating class, giving a “bright” and “admirable” farewell address.5 Despite her initial ambitions to be a teacher, she began working at the HCO soon after her high school graduation.6
In 1891, Rugg moved to Washington D.C. and took a job as a clerk in the US Treasury Department.7 In November 1903, she married Kirk Holmes, a clerk in the US Navy Department, and changed her name to Jennie Rugg Holmes.8 She continued to live in Washington D.C. until her death on March 4th, 1949.9
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette and Meta Partenheimer, 2022
Citations:
1- Solon I. Bailey, The History and Work of Harvard Observatory, 1839 to 1927; an outline of the origin, development, and researches of the Astronomical observatory of Harvard College together with brief biographies of its leading members (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931), 279.↩2-Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (New York: Viking, 2016), 30.↩
3- “Massachusetts, U.S., Birth Records, 1840-1915” Ancestry.com; Cambridge Chronicle (Cambridge, Mass), Nov 19, 1887.↩
4-The Cambridge Directory, Boston: W.A. Greenough & Co., 1869-1880.↩
5-"The Public Schools," Cambridge Tribune (Cambridge, Mass), May 28, 1887.↩
6-Cambridge Press (Cambridge, Mass), July 2, 1887; Cambridge Chronicle (Cambridge, Mass), Nov 19, 1887.↩
7-Official Register of the United States, Containing List of the Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service, Together with a List of Vessels Belonging to the United States, vol. 1, July 1, 1895. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895; Boyd's Directory of the District of Columbia, 1892. William H. Boyd. Washington, D.C., 821.↩
8-District of Columbia, Compiled Marriage Index, 1830-1921.↩
9- “Deaths,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Mar, 5 1949. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.↩