Marine Biological Laboratory

Falmouth Forum Series 2007-2008


Photo Credit: Jim Powers / The Inquirer and Mirror

"Among the Stars: The Life of Maria Mitchell, Astronomer, Educator, Women’s Rights Activist"

October 12, 2007 - Lillie Auditorium, 7:30 PM
Lectures are free and open to the public.

Margaret Booker, freelance writer and museum professional, author of Among the Stars: The Life of Maria Mitchell

Press Release

Abstract:
Few avenues of high achievement were open to American women in the mid-nineteenth century, but Maria Mitchell, a young librarian on Nantucket Island sent a startling signal through the male-dominated world of science when she emerged as a world-class astronomer. Mitchell, who discovered a comet while peering through a simple telescope on the roof of her family’s home, earned the price of her travels and scientific materials by computing navigational tables for the Nautical Almanac, and then moved into the larger world.

While Mitchell is usually celebrated as the first American female astronomer of worldwide reputation, her achievements as a pioneer in the education of women at Vassar College, and as a national leader of women’s movements in the latter half of the 19th century, are less well known.

Booker, whose biography Among the Stars: The Life of Maria Mitchell was published in May 2007 by Mill Hill Press of Nantucket, will speak about Mitchell’s progress from Nantucket schoolgirl to one of the leading women in American scientific and social history. Drawing on journals, scholarly publications, and letters, Booker will show how this extraordinary woman launched herself into the largely male worlds of science and education, and left a substantive mark on both.

Margaret Moore Booker is a freelance writer and museum professional who spent five years researching and writing about the life of Maria Mitchell. From 1996 to 2000 she was the Curator of Collections at the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies. From 2000 to 2004, in addition to serving as Curator of Collections, Booker served as Associate Director and coordinator of Mill Hill Press, an affiliate of the Egan Maritime Foundation.

Booker currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she works as a freelance writer and as a project assistant for Textile Conservation Survey at the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research.

Booker received her B.A. in Art History from Boston College and her M.A. in American Art from George Washington University. She is the co-author of Sea-Captains Houses and Rose Covered Cottages, and Nantucket Spirit: the Art and Life of Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin.

Copies of Among the Stars: The Life of Maria Mitchell will be available for sale in the Lillie Auditorium lobby before and after the lecture. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Admission to this Falmouth Forum presentation is free and open to the public. A buffet dinner is available before the lecture at 6:00 p.m. in the Swope Center located near the auditorium. Dinner tickets are $20 and must be purchased in advance at either Eight Cousins Children’s Books, Main Street, Falmouth, or at the MBL’s Communications Office in the Candle House in Woods Hole. Dinner seats are limited and tickets are only available until they sell out or until 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 9. For more information, contact the MBL Communications Office at: (508) 289-7423 or