If you follow astronomy news, you’re aware of the vastly more powerful telescopes now peering into space both from earth and high above our planet. As we look through them, we’re seeing so much more deeply into the very heart of the universe—into the very nature of us—even though humans have been gazing at these same stars since we first lifted our chins to the nighttime sky.
Something similar is happening as we study the lives and work of women.
A wonderful exhibit at the University of Chicago Regenstein Library tells this same story in a different way. Called “Capturing the Stars: The Untold History of Women at Yerkes Observatory,” the exhibit documents how many—and how much—women contributed to the research conducted at Yerkes in the opening decades of the twentieth century. Doing complex calculations, conducting original research, painstakingly documenting their own observations, and just generally making the leading observatory of its day run, women powerfully advanced the study of astronomy and astrophysics in the world.
Not that you would know it. The lives and labor of these women is virtually invisible in the public record. It took a multidisciplinary team from UChicago’s Special Collections Research Center to piece together and document the story the exhibit tells. There are letters and photographs and films on display.
“You probably know that we are running the Observatory this year by woman power,” wrote Yerkes director Edwin Frost to a colleague in 1916. “They all seem to be enjoying their work and are very industrious. Moreover, the work of the institution goes on as usual.” It was a moment and a place when women could freely participate in every phase of groundbreaking scientific research.
“Capturing the Stars” remains on display until December 15. Please visit if you can.