Martha Betz Shapley (August 3, 1890-January 24, 1981) 1 worked at the Harvard College Observatory from 1921 to approximately 1932 and from approximately 1945 to 1952. She was known as an authority on eclipsing binary stars, and she also did mathematical calculations for a variety of other projects.2
Betz Shapley began her career in astronomy at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1914, where she worked for seven years before moving to Harvard.3 She specialized in calculating the orbits of eclipsing binary stars, which are pairs of stars in close orbit around each other that therefore appear as a single variable point of light as seen from earth. Between 1917-1932, she calculated and published the orbit of at least 14 eclipsing binary stars.4
Before entering the field of astronomy, Betz Shapley married the astronomer Harlow Shapley, who served as the director of the Harvard College Observatory from 1921-1952 and whose high profile often overshadowed her own work.5 Being more talented than her husband in mathematics, she often did calculations to support his work,6 and she is listed as co-author on 7 of his publications between 1915-1922. 7
During World War II, Betz Shapley decided to use her mathematical abilities to assist the war effort, and she worked for four years calculating firing tables for the Navy and Air Force through the Division of Industrial Cooperation at MIT.8 Between the end of the war in 1945 and her retirement in 1952, she continued to work at both the HCO and MIT.9 Most notably, she collaborated with astronomer Zdeněk Kopal to make what he called “the major contribution of her lifetime,” the 1956 Catalogue of the Elements of Eclipsing Binary Systems.10 The work systematically re-interpreted her earlier observational data on eclipsing variables using more modern methods.11
As the “First Lady” of the HCO, Betz Shapley also played a key role in the social life of the observatory, including hosting “Full-Moon Club” parties for the observatory community at her home for every full moon.12
Betz Shapley was born in Kansas City, Missouri to parents Carl Betz and Louise Betz.13 She had three sisters and two brothers.14 She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Missouri in 1910 with a bachelor’s degree in education, and she earned her master’s degree in German from the same school in 1913.15 While pursuing her master’s degree, she taught mathematics at a high school in Kansas City,16 and between 1913-1914, she briefly pursued doctoral studies at Bryn Mawr College.17 She met her husband, Dr. Harlow Shapley, while they were both students at the University of Missouri, and they were married on April 15, 1914.18 The couple had five children–Mildred, Willis, Alan, Lloyd, and Carl–born in 1915, 1917, 1919, 1923, and 1927, respectively.19 Two of their children went on to pursue careers in astronomy, and their son Lloyd Stowell Shapley won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2012. Betz Shapley died in 1981 in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 90, leaving behind 9 grandchildren.20
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Selected Publications:
Kopal, Zdenek and Shapley, Martha B. “A Study of the Extended Envelope Surrounding the Wolf-Rayet Component of V 444 Cygni.” Astrophysical Journal vol. 104 (September 1946), p. 160. Bibcode: 1946ApJ…104..160K
Kopal, Z. and Shapley, M. B. “Catalogue of the Element of Eclipsing Binary Systems,” Astronomical Contributions from the University of Manchester (Jodrell Bank Annals), series 1, vol. 1, no. 4 (1956), p. 99-221.
Shapley, H. and Shapley, M. B. “A study of the lightcurve of XX Cygni.” Astrophysical Journal, 42 (September 1915), p. 148-162. Bibcode: 1915ApJ….42..148S
Shapley, H. and Shapley, M. B. “Studies based on the colors and magnitudes in stellar clusters. XIV. Further remarks on the structure of the galactic system.” Astrophysical Journal, 50 (September 1919), p. 107-140. Bibcode: 1919ApJ….50..107S
Shapley, M. B. “Lightcurves and orbital elements of TT Lyrae and Y Camelopardalis.” Astrophsical Journal, 46 (July 1917), p. 56-63. Bibcode: 1917ApJ….46…56S
Shapley, M. B. “Orbit of the eclipsing binary TW Andromedae.” Astrophysical Journal, 56 (December 1922), p. 439-445. Bibcode: 1922ApJ….56..439S
Citations:
1- Thomas Hockey, “Shapley, Martha” in Thomas Hockey et. al., eds., Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (New York: Springer, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0↩
2- Ibid.↩
3- Zdenek Kopal, “In Memoriam: Martha Betz Shapley (1890-1981),” Astrophysics and Space Science, 79 (1981): 261-264. Bibcode: 1981Ap&SS..79..261.↩
4- SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/search/p_=0&q=((author%3A%22Shapley%2C%20Martha%20B.%22)%20AND%20year%3A1915-1990)&sort=date%20desc%2C%20bibcode%20desc.↩
5- Barbara L. Welther, “Martha Betz Shapley: First Lady of Harvard College Observatory 1921-1952,” abstract, Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers vol. 15, no. 2 (1986); Kopal, “In Memoriam.”↩
6- Kopal, “In Memoriam.” ↩
7- SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System.↩
8- Barbara L. Welther, “Guilt by Association: How Mrs. Harlow Shapley Lost Her Job,” Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society vol. 18 (September 1986), p. 1055. Bibcode: 1986BAAS…18R1055W↩
9- Ibid.↩
10- Kopal, “In Memoriam.”↩
11-Ibid↩
12- Welther, “Martha Betz Shapley”; Kopal, “In Memoriam.”↩
13- Kopal, “In Memoriam.” ↩
14- “Miss Alma Betz,” The Kansas City Times, August 31, 1978, p. 82.↩
15- “365 Degrees Given at the 69th Annual M. U. Commencement,” The Evening Missourian, June 8, 1911; ↩
16- “Miss Martha Betz to Teach: Graduate Student Has Accepted Position in Kansas City H.S.,” The Evening Missourian, April 19, 1912, p. 4.↩
17- Kopal, “In Memoriam.”↩
18- “Two M. U. Graduates to Marry,” University Missourian (Columbia, Missouri), April 23, 1914, p. 3.↩
19- Kopal, “In Memoriam.”
20- “Martha Betz Shapley,” The New York Times, January 27, 1981, p. B19.↩