Susan Raymond King (June 27, 1892-October 30, 1970) worked at the Harvard College Observatory from 1914 to 1919.1 Her work focused on measuring asteroids and variable stars.
Raymond King worked at the HCO in an unknown capacity in 1914,2 as a Nantucket Associate Quadrennial Year Fellow from 1915-1916,3 as a Maria Mitchell Memorial Fellow from 1916-1917,4 and as an astronomy graduate student from 1917-1919.5 She primarily worked under the supervision of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and she often collaborated with the other Maria Mitchell fellow, Genevieve Mathews.6 Raymond King’s work involved measuring the photographic magnitudes of asteroids and stars, including calculating the full set of published measurements for some stars7 and being credited with the discovery of at least one variable star.8 She also discovered the asteroid Antigone.9 In 1917, Raymond King was elected as a charter member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.10
After leaving the HCO, Raymond King and her husband, Harold Skinner King, moved to Nova Scotia in order for him to take a job as a college chemistry professor.11 In 1923, both spouses were elected as members of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science.12 Raymond King and her family remained in Nova Scotia until 1942, during which time she did some calculating work for the Leavitts Almanac.13
Raymond King and her husband moved back to the United States in 1943 so that he could do chemical ordnance work on behalf of the U.S. military during World War II.14 From 1943-1945, Raymond King worked as an astronomy researcher at the Yale Observatory and an instructor of astronomy and mathematics at Smith College, her alma mater.15 After the war, she and her husband moved to Maryland, and Susan likely retired from her academic career.16
Raymond King earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1913 and her master’s degree from Radcliffe in 1919.17 In 1922, she married chemist Harold Skinner King, who was the son of the prominent HCO astronomer Edward Skinner King.18 The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth Raymond King and Nancy King (later Reynes), born in 1923 and 1926 respectively.19 Raymond King homeschooled her daughters with a rigorous science curriculum, and her elder daughter would later become a prominent geophysicist.20 Both daughters followed in their mother’s footsteps by attending Smith College for their undergraduate degrees.21 Raymond King died in Maryland on October 30, 1970 at the age of 78, leaving behind two children and three grandchildren.22
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Selected Publications:
Raymond, Susan. “The Variability of Antigone (129).” Publications of the American Astronomical Society vol. 4 (1922): 43. Bibcode: 1922PAAS….4…43R
Raymond, Susan. “The Variability of Antigone (129 (abstract).” Popular Astronomy vol. 27 (1919): 95. Bibcode: 1919PA…..27…95R
Citations:
1- Photograph of gravestone in “Susan Raymond King,” FindAGrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102016716/susan-king (accessed August 16, 2022).↩2- Susan Raymond logbook. Variables and Asteroids [1914phae.proj.1158R], Cambridge, MA: John G. Wolbach Library, Harvard College Observatory, Project PHaEDRA (accessed August 16, 2022).↩
3- “Chronological Record,” Annual Report of the Maria Mitchell Association vol. 44 (1946): 7. Bibcode: 1946MMAAR..44….5; “The Astronomical Fellowship of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association,” Science vol. 34 (August 1911): 177-178. doi: 10.1126/science.34.867.177.b↩
4- “Chronological Record.”↩
5- Marilyn Ogilvie and Joy Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century (London: Routledge, 2000): 698.↩
6- Annie J. Cannon, “Astronomical Fellowships for Women,” Harvard College Observatory Circular vol. 214 (March 1919): 1-2. Bibcode: 1919HarCi.214….1C↩
7- Harlow Shapley, “Photographic Observations of Six Circumpolar variables,” Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College vol. 84 (1933): 57. Bibcode: 1933AnHar..84…57S↩
8- Edward J. Pickering, “Twenty One New Variable Stars,” Harvard College Observatory Circular vol. 201 (July 1917): 1-2.↩
9- Cannon, “Astronomical Fellowships for Women.”↩
10- Dorrit Hoffleit, Women in the History of Variable Star Astronomy, (Cambridge, MA: American Association of Variable Star Observers, 1993): 45.↩
11- Ogilvie and Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: 698; Tim J. Fedak, “Elizabeth Raymond King–A Geologist Inspired by Bay of Fundy Minerals and the Nova Scotian Institute of Science,” Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science vol. 51 (2021): 271-280.↩
12- “Appendix: List of members, 1925-26.” Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science 16, no. 4 (1926): 199; Fedak, “Elizabeth Raymond King.”↩
13- Ogilvie and Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: 698.↩
14- Ibid.↩
15- Ibid.↩
16-Ibid.↩
17- Ibid.↩
18- Leon Campbell, “Obituary: Edward Skinner King,” Science vol. 74 (October 1931): 380. doi: 10.1126/science.74.1920.380.a↩
19- “Harold Skinner King” in Harvard Class of 1917: Vicennial Report (Cambridge, MA: Crimson Printing Co., 1942): 59. https://archive.org/stream/vicennialreporth00unse/vicennialreporth00unse...↩
20- Fedak, “Elizabeth Raymond King.”↩
21- Fedak, “Elizabeth Raymond King;” “Nancy King Reynes,” FindAGrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143996919/nancy-reynes (accessed August 16, 2022).↩
22- “Susan Raymond King,” FindAGrave.com; “Nancy King Reynes,” FindAGrave.com.↩