(1818-1889)
"On the cultivation of women's minds depends the wisdom of men."
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Maria Mitchell was born on the Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, August 1, 1818, and to-day if you go there, you may see a monument erected to her memory.
Her ancestors were Quakers who had fled hither from Massachusetts because of religious persecution. Nantucket Island then belonged to New York State, and here these good people were free to worship God as they pleased. Almost all of the inhabitants of the Island belonged to the Society of Friends, from which sect have sprung many of our notable men and women, among them John G. Whittier, "the Quaker Poet," who all his life wore the Quaker garb and spoke the language of that religious society.
The Mitchell family were not very strict; that is, they did not wear the plain clothes of the sect, although they probably used the "thee" and "thou." Maria's mother was a woman of great strength of character. Her father was a kindly gentleman, whose affection for his children was so great that he could refuse them nothing. Often Mrs. Mitchell was obliged to check him, fearing they would be spoiled by his indulgence.
The little girls were brought up to be industrious. They learned to make their own clothes by making those of their dolls, and frequently they made their own dolls, too, the eldest sister painting the faces.
Maria received the first rudiments of her education from her mother and an excellent woman teacher, but not until she entered her father's school, at the age of eleven, did she begin to show marked ability as a student.
Mr. Mitchell was greatly interested in the study of astronomy, and owned a small telescope, which he used to examine the heavens at night. Maria was especially fond of her father's pursuit. She also had a taste for mathematics, without which astronomy as a science cannot be mastered, and she watched, patient and absorbed, when her father would compute distances by means of his scientific instruments. There was no school in the country where Maria Mitchell could be taught higher mathematics, so she continued to study with her father.
Every fine night the telescope was placed in Mr. Mitchell's back yard, and the neighbors would come in to gaze through it at the moon and the planets. Little Maria was always on hand listening for scraps of information.