Margaret Harwood (March 19, 1885 - February 6, 1979) was an American astronomer, teacher, and the first director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory.

Harwood started at the Harvard Observatory in 1912 as the first recipient of the new Maria Mitchell Association Fellowship. Under this Fellowship, she spent six months out of the year on Nantucket, furthering her studies of asteroids with the telescope next door to her lodging, and curating a small library and museum. The other six months of the year were spent at the Harvard Observatory taking measurements of Eros and other asteroids from plates taken with the Harvard and Maria Mitchell Telescopes.¹She was invited to continue her work through 1915, when she was given her fellowship stipend, but traveled west to the Lick Observatory to continue studying asteroids and work towards her Masters.²

Harwood was hired as the director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory in 1916, and worked there until 1956, 41 years later. She was the first, and for many years only, woman to serve as director of an independent observatory.³ She studied and measured the photometry–variation in light of asteroids, particularly the asteroid Eros, and variable light of stars and lightcurves of other minor planets.⁴ Harwood had a great impact and was well-loved in her community in Nantucket.

In 1917, Harwood was pressured to not make a claim for credit for an asteroid she discovered. Four days later, George Peters of the US Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. claimed the discovery, and preemptively named it “Washingtonia” (866). Harwood sent her photographs of the asteroid to Peters to be included in his analysis of the orbit, but was always bitter about this event, saying she would have called it “Nantucket”.⁵ There are asteroids named Nantucket (7041), and Harwood (7040) named in her honor, discovered 40 years later at the Palomar Observatory.⁶

Harwood was born in Littleton, Mass, as one of nine children. She graduated in 1907 from Radcliffe College with a Bachelor's Degree.⁷ She taught science at some private schools in Boston to supplement her income while working at the Harvard Observatory.⁸ In 1916, she completed a Masters Degree in Astronomy with the University of California, Berkeley. She traveled widely in the U.S. and Europe and was a member of many Astronomy-related societies. When Dorrit Hoffleit took over for her at the Maria Mitchell Observatory as Director in 1956, she returned to work at the Harvard Observatory in semi-retirement for another 20 years. Harwood passed away in Boston and is buried at the Westlawn Cemetery in Littleton, Massachusetts.⁹

Harwood submitted many of the Annual reports for the Maria Mitchell Association which can be found through the John G. Wolbach Library, Hollis system. Her contributions to the Plate Stacks Logbooks can be found through the Astrophysical Data System. Her ‘masterpiece’, “The variable stars in the Scutum cloud” (1960, Leiden, Sterrewacht te Leiden) can be requested from the Wolbach Library, HOLLIS.

Written by Samantha Notick, 2022

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