Hello lovely people!
I’m back with another historical profile, for those of you who just love learning about
exciting deaf, disabled or LGBTQ+ folks from history.
I mean let’s be honest, it’s the history classes
we all deserved to have in school!
Today we’re going to be talking about someone a little different to our previous characters.
Whilst many of them are widely known, Annie Jump Cannon isn’t spoken about much but
she really, really deserves to be!
You can find my previous videos in the series in a playlist that will be linked in the description
and probably in a card above, right…
Remember if you’re new or have been watching for a while but haven’t yet done so to please
hit the subscribe button and then the notification bell to make sure you don’t miss out on
any of the wonderful people I’ll be spotlighting in the future.
And if you have a suggestion for my next profile then please do leave it in the comments below!
Born on the 11th December 1863, Annie Jump Cannon was the oldest of three daughters born
to Wilson Cannon, a Delaware shipbuilder and senator, and his second wife, Mary Jump. Unusually
for a middle-class Victorian mother Mary Jump did not just train her daughters in music,
manners and marrying
- “Oh why thank you kindly, sir. Of course I’ll marry you for that compliment.”
but instead she encouraged her girls to follow their passions.
Annie’s mother taught her the constellations and emboldened Annie in pursuing studies in
mathematics, chemistry, and biology. They would gaze at the stars together from an attic
room, using an old astronomy textbook to identify the beautiful shapes and patterns that could
be seen with the naked eye. By her early teens Annie had already memorised a working map
of the night sky.
Obviously she did also have to learn household economics. Don’t be silly.
It’s not like she could Google things or watch a YouTube video on how to change a plug.
- She also didn’t have plugs.
Those early lessons in family economics, savings, and labour supply actually panned out wonderfully
when it came to her research! See, you think your mother telling you how to load the washing
machine is boring? But she’s actually giving you vital study tips that you’ll need to
pass your exams!
Listen to your parents!
- unless they are disparaging you. In which case: nah.
Since Annie so clearly enjoyed school and learning new things, particularly in science,
her parents decided…
To send her to university!
[crowd cheer]
I know, we’re all stunned by this excellent late 19th century parenting of a daughter.
If only all 21st century parents around the world would catch up.
Annie studied physics and astronomy at Wellesley, one of the top academic schools for women
in the US. She studied under Sarah Frances Whiting, one of the few female physicists
in the United States at the time, and went on to become the class valedictorian.
She graduated with a degree in physics in 1884.
And sometime during this time she contracted scarlet fever, a contagious infection that,
since the proper treatment was not widely available at that time, had a high mortality
rate and often left people with lifelong problems.
Long-term complications as a result of scarlet fever
include kidney disease, rheumatic heart disease, and arthritis. It’s generally seen in children
aged 5 to 15 and was a leading cause of death for young people in the early 20th century.
Annie was stricken with scarlet fever while at university and it caused an ear infection
that left her close to profoundly deaf.
So what did she do? [inspirational music]
- Looked after her wellbeing for an appropriate period of convalescence and focused on recovering
her strength completely before she felt well enough to return to school.
And then she got right back up and became class valedictorian because she was a fighter!
- Focus on your own health and wellness first before pushing yourself into being someone
else’s inspirational story. [bell sfx]
She graduated in 1884 with a degree in physics and returned home, but grew restless with
the limited career options open to women.
Because there were only three of them and they were all dull as dishwater.
Her hearing loss also made it difficult to socialise, especially since she was a very
lively and extroverted personality.
Hard relate.
Instead she threw herself into a new love of photography and traveled through Europe
taking photographs with her Blair Box Camera which, as you can tell from the name, was
both a camera… and a box.
Most of the accounts I’ve read of Annie Jump Cannon make it sound as if nothing happened
to her for ten years after she graduated but she actually did rather well with her photography-
probably because she didn’t have to listen to anyone. [laugh]
After returning from her travels,
her prose and photographs were published by the Blair company in a pamphlet called "In
the Footsteps of Columbus", and distributed as a souvenir at the Chicago World's Columbian
Exposition of 1893.
Go Annie!
But it’s also fair to say that her hearing loss made daily life very difficult. Annie
did not search for a husband and no one seems to have thought it was a consideration, whether
from the innate ableism in the desexualisation of disabled or chronically ill people or simply
because Annie just didn’t want one herself, we can’t know. Since she was a strong and
independent lady with no need for a man what so ever we’re not going to talk about it
again because [blows raspberries]
When Annie’s mother, who was her main translator, died in 1894 her home life became more difficult
and she wrote to her former professor at Wellesley, Sarah Frances Whiting, to ask about job opportunities.
Whiting hired her as a junior physics teacher at the college and encouraged her to take
graduate courses there in physics and astronomy.
In order to gain access to a better telescope she enrolled at Radcliffe Women’s College
at Harvard, which… was actually just set up near Harvard College for Harvard professors
to repeat their lectures to the young Radcliffe women because…
Sexism.
It did however give her access to the Harvard College Observatory. Where she became
[harp sfx]
a Harvard Computer!
The Computers were an all-woman team of astronomy analysts who worked for Harvard Observatory
director Edward C. Pickering to complete the Henry Draper Catalogue, with the goal of mapping
and defining every star in the sky to a photographic magnitude of about 9.
- You don’t need to know what that means to be impressed.
The story goes that one day Pickering became so enraged with the poor performance of his
male Harvard grad students that he swore even his maid could do a better job and hired her
on the spot only to find out she was actually a bonafide genius
who was better than even him!
Ha!
Also: [sexism sign]
After that, he only hired women, reasoning that they were better at detailed work.
Which is a little… sexist [sexism sign] but we’ll smooth over it...
They were however refered to by other members of the university as “Pickering’s Harem”
which… [sexism sign]
This sign is getting more usage than I wanted it to.
Annie quickly became a phenomenal astronomer and when tasked with classifying stars based
on a huge catalog of astronomic spectography, quickly realized that the classification system
they were using was woefully inadequate.
— so she made her own. [cheers] Obviously.
Previously, all stars had been lumped into categories of A, B, and C,
But Annie came up with the classification system of
(watch me attempt to get this right)
O, B, A, F, G, K, M, R, N, S,
-Which has been remembered for years now with the mnemonic of “Oh, be a fine girl, kiss
me right now, sweet.”
Sure(!)
By 1910, Annie’s system for organising and classifying stars based on their temperatures
and spectral types had become the de-facto standard, and remains so to this day as the
Harvard Classification Scheme. Because yes, she was just that great.
At the peak of her
career she was able to classify three stars per minute and not only that- SHE REMEMBERED
ALL OF THEM. When shown a photograph of a star or asked to pick up a plate with a specific
star on, she instantly knew, out of tens of thousands of plates,
the exact star and its name.
Annie and the other women at the observatory were criticised at first for being "out of
their place"-
(ie. not being housewives) [sexism sign]
At this time women did not commonly rise beyond the level of assistant and were paid far less
than their male counterparts for doing the same job.
But Annie dominated this field because of her "tidiness" and patience
for the tedious work, and even helped the men in the observatory gain popularity. She
wrote books and articles to increase astronomy's status and helped broker partnerships in the
international astronomy community.
As she grew in prestige she became involved in the women’s suffrage movement and worked
as an ambassador for professional women everywhere. She gave talks at the Worlds Fair in Chicago
and never retired, working seven days a week-
- generally for the criminally low rate of 25 cents an hour
[sexism sign]
Until she finally died from heart disease at 76 years of age.
Over her lifetime she cataloged over 350,000 stars, and some attribute her astronomical
skill to her deafness. Annie herself said that the silence allowed her to concentrate
more fully on her work.
In later years, with the help of a powerful hearing aid, she was able to gain back her
social life and held regular dinner parties at her lovely house, which she renamed
‘Star Cottage’.
It's so cute! I can't
Near the end of her life, with World War 2 on the horizon, Annie summed up her worldview
in one of her last interviews:
“In these days of great trouble and unrest, it is good
to have something outside our own planet, something fine and distant and comforting
to troubled minds. Let people look to the stars for comfort.”
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s video, please do share it with someone who needs a little
break from stress and to learn about a wonderful woman.
Please also consider becoming a member of the Kellgren-Fozard Club, a behind the scenes
group of Lovely People who have access to a special extra video every month, a sign
up goodie bag and… soon a Discord server.
Which I will be setting up once I learn how.
I know I look young but really I’m just a 90 year old with a good skin care routine
and a passion for hydration.
See you in my next video!
[kiss]