User:Mnwfk2/sandbox

This is my sandbox. I am enrolled in Histroy 3530 at Missouri University of Science and Technology Mnwfk2 (talk) 03:54, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Article Review

Harvard Computers

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
  • Yes everything is relevant in the article, but there are no headings so it is a bit distracting to read.
• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
  • The article is unbiased, but it seems more sources are necessary in order to provide readers with more reliable information
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
  • I believe the viewpoints of the computers themselves are underrepresented.
• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
  • The links work and support the claims of the article, but are not the most reputable sources (blogs and websites)
• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
  • Unless the article is missing some citations there are some gaps in references. Some of the references are books while others are blogs and websites.
• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
  • There is definitely information that can be added to this page. More research could go into the individual computers and add their achievements. The article should be divided into subsections to better understand the content and guide the reader.
• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
  • There are limited conversations going on in this article's talk page. It appears there are not many editors of this page.
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
  • This article is a 'start' class article in biography/science academia, history of science, astronomy, women's history, and women scientists. The article is rated low importance in history of science and astronomy and mid importance in women's history.
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
  • Wikipedia's article discusses this topic in a similar way that we cover in class, however when covered in class we mainly focused on the women's achievements.

Sources for article additions:

The Harvard computers. Nelson, SueAuthor Information. Nature; London Vol. 455, Iss. 7209,  (Sep 4, 2008): 36-7.

• Computers measured brightness, position, and color of stars
• Harvard computers determined how to calculate the distance from stars to earth and classified stars in ways that are still used today.
• Pickering first hired his maid as a computer
• Fleming (Pickering's maid) later became a full-time staff member at Harvard at the age of 24
• The images produced by the observatories at this time were often very hard to read
  • The only tool the women had to use was a magnifying glass
• Fleming's accomplishments
  • Helped develop classification of stars based on hydrogen
  • Major role in discovering strangeness of white dwarfs
    • what is so strange about white dwarfs??
  • Appointed Harvard's Curator of Astronomical Photographs in 1899
    • First woman appointed to position
  • First female American citizen electected to British Royal Astronomical Society in 1907
  • Estimated to have analyzed 200,000 photographic plates
• Research the role all-female colleges played
• Pickering encouraged women to be astronomers
  • publish under their name
  • research in their spare time
  • give talks

You might want to check out "The Glass Universe" by Dava Sobel. The whole book is about this group. K8shep (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

3/2/2018

I am working with Kim Dyhouse ( user/Kadyb9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kadyb9/sandbox ) on Harvard Computers for our semester project. We will be working in this sandbox for our article drafts.

• We chose this article because it is a start class article and we feel there is a lot we could add to it.
• This article is missing quite a bit of information. Many of the individual computers have their own wikipedia page, but we feel an overview of their careers as well as other information on the group as a whole could be added.
• Things we'd like to add:
  • More information on the individual computers, pulling from their biographical wikipedia pages.
  • General information about the group and how it was operated
  • More background on Pickering
  • Connections to other computing groups throughout history

Link to an eBook found online When Computers Were Human Section around page 82. I'll work on this tomorrow Kadyb9 (talk) 20:31, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Article Draft

Editing Harvard Computers

The Harvard Observatory, under direction of Edward Charles Pickering (1877 to 1919) had a number of women working as skilled workers to process astronomical data. Harvard was the first such institution to hire women to do this type of work. Among these women were Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Antonia Maury. Although these women started primarily as calculators, they often rose to contribute to the astronomical field, and even publish in their own names. This staff came to be known as the Harvard Computers or, more derisively, as "Pickering's Harem". This was an example of what has been identified as the "harem effect" in the history and sociology of science [find citation]. The group made many contributions to the field of astronomy.

History

Although Pickering believed that gathering data at astronomical observatories was not the most appropriate work, it seems that several factors contributed to his decision to hire women instead of men. Among them was the fact that men were paid much more than women, so he could employ more staff with the same budget. This was relevant in a time when the amount of astronomical data was surpassing the capacity of the Observatories to process it. Although some of Pickering's female staff were astronomy graduates, their wages were similar to those of unskilled workers. They usually earned between 25 and 50 cents per hour, more than a factory worker but less than a clerical one. Pickering also argued that women would be advantageous workers due to the amount of free time they often possessed, many had an inclination to astronomy and science, and the work could be done from any window.

The women were often tasked with measuring the brightness, position, and color of stars. The work was mainly clerical, including such tasks as classifying stars by comparing the photographs to known catalogs and reducing the photographs while accounting for things like atmospheric refraction in order to render the clearest possible image. Fleming herself described the work as “so nearly alike that there will be little to describe outside ordinary routine work of measurement, examination of photographs, and of work involved in the reduction of these observations”. At times women offered to work at the observatory for free in order to gain experience in a field that was difficult to get into.

Significant Members

Do you think we should add a heading like this? It could break up the difference between the history as a whole and the people? Kadyb9 (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Mary Anna Palmer Draper

Mrs. Draper was the widow of Dr. Henry Draper, an astronomer who died before completing his work on the chemical composition of stars. She was very involved in her husband's work and wanted to finish his classification of stars after he passed away. Mrs. Draper quickly realized the task facing her was far too daunting for one person. She had received correspondence from Mr. Pickering, a close friend of her and her husband. Pickering offered to help finish her husband's work, and encouraged her to publish his findings up to the time of his death. After some deliberation and much consideration, Mrs. Draper decided in 1886 to donate money and a telescope of her husband to the Harvard Observatory in order to photograph the spectra of stars. She had decided this would be the best way to continue her husband's work and erect his legacy in astronomy. She was very insistent on funding the memorial project with her own inheritance, as it would carry on her husband's legacy. She was a dedicated follower of the observatory and a great friend of Pickering's, in 1900 she funded an expedition to see the total solar eclipse occurring that year.

Williamina Fleming

Williamina Fleming had no prior relation to Harvard, as she was a Scottish immigrant. Pickering's wife recommended Fleming had talents beyond custodial and maternal arts. Shortly after the donations from Mrs. Draper, one of the existing computers, Nettie Farrar, became engaged. Pickering chose Fleming to replace her as a computer, and made her supervisor of the 14 existing female computers. Pickering first challenged Fleming to improve a preexisting classification of stars. The Harvard Observatory images contained photographed spectra of stars that reached the ultraviolet range, this allowed much more accurate classifications of stars to be performed when compared to recording spectra by hand through an instrument at night. As a result of the work of the women "computers", Pickering published in 1890 the first Henry Draper Catalog, a catalog with more than 10,000 stars classified according to their spectrum. The majority of these classifications were done by Fleming. She also made it possible to go back and compare recorded plates, by organizing thousands of photographs by telescope along with other identifying factors. Fleming went on to help develop a classification of stars based on their hydrogen content, as well as play a major role in discovering the strange nature of white dwarf stars. Williamina also continued her career in astronomy to be appointed Harvard's Curator of Astronomical Photographs in 1899, also known as Curator of the Photographic Plates. She remained the only woman curator until the 1950s. Her work also lead to her becoming the first female American citizen to be elected to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1907. Kadyb9 (talk) 16:52, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Anotonia Maury

Antonia Maury was the niece of Henry Draper, and after some recommendation from Mrs. Draper, was hired as a computer. She was a graduate from Vassar College, and was tasked with reclassifying some of the stars after the publication of the Henry Draper Catalog. Maury decided to go further and improved and redesigned the system of classification, but had other obligations and left the observatory in 1892 then again in 1894. Her work was still finished with the help of Pickering and the computing staff and was published in 1897. She returned again in 1908 as an associate researcher.

Anna Winlock

Some of the first women who were hired to work as computers had familial connections to the Harvard Observatory’s male staff. For instance, Anna Winlock, one of the first of the Harvard Computers, was the eldest daughter of Joseph Winlock, the third director of the observatory and Pickering’s immediate predecessor.. Anna Winlock joined the observatory in 1875 to assist in supporting her family after her father's unexpected passing. Within a year, three other women joined the staff: Selina Bond, Rhoda Sauders, and the third was likely a relative of an assistant astronomy.

Annie Cannon

Harvard Computers at work, circa 1890, including Henrietta Swan Leavitt seated, third from left, with magnifying glass (1868–1921), Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), Williamina Fleming standing, at center (1857–1911), and Antonia Maury (1866–1952).

Pickering decided to hire Cannon, a graduate of Wellesley College, to classify the southern stars. While at Wellesley, she took astronomy courses from one of Pickering's star students, Sarah Frances Whiting. Astronomy became a big part of her life, and helped her grieve her mother's passing. She became the first female assistant to study variable stars at night. She studied the "light curve" of variable stars which could help suggest the type and causation of variation. Cannon considered merging the classification systems developed by Fleming and Maury rather than inventing a brand new one, and developed the Harvard Classification Scheme, which constitutes the basis of the system used today. She also categorized the variable stars into tables so they could be identified and compared much easier.

Henrietta Leavitt

Henrietta Swan Leavitt arrived at the observatory in 1893. Add citation for Miss Leavitts Stars pg 25 She had experience through her college studies, traveling abroad, and teaching. In academia, Leavitt excelled in mathematics courses at Cambridge. When she began at the observatory she was tasked with measuring star brightness through photometry. She returned the observatory in 1903 after trips to Europe and experience as an art assistant at Beloit College. She found hundreds of new variable stars after starting to analyze the Great Nebula in Orion. Her work proved successful and was expanded to study the variables of the entire sky with Annie Cannon and Evelyn Leland. Her insight that all the variable stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud are roughly the same distance from Earth, led to her discovering a direct relationship between the period of Cepheid variable stars and their intrinsic brightness. This discovery, in turn, led to the modern understanding of the true size of the universe, and Cepheid variables are still an essential tool for the measurement of cosmological distance.

External links

• Pickering's Harem

Peer Review by Liz Carrano

Overall, I thought that the article was well written. One suggestion I could make it to not use the phrase "it seems". Using this phrase sounds like an opinion is being expressed in the article. I think it is was really smart to make a heading of Williamina Fleming, but I also think that the other major women that were mentioned in the lead paragraph should have their own headings. The only reason I say that is because just looking at the article, one would think that all of the information under the Williamina Fleming heading would be about her and that isn't the case. In the article, it was marked were a citation was needed as well as a missing date so once all of that is inputted, the information will be great. Lizcarrano (talk) 18:42, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to Peer Review

We will consider rephrasing the sentences that use "it seems", but if the information is cited, rephrasing might not be necessary. We plan to make other headings for the women that were involved and made major contributions. We just haven't separated that information from the overall draft because we didn't want to lose information. We are also working on fixing the citations and correcting some of the information. Thank you for the suggestions and feedback! Mnwfk2 (talk) 15:18, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review by Kele Shi

I think this article is trying to present things in a chronological way, which makes sense but also makes it hard to elaborate detailed information of individual women scientist. If you want to switch it to the "introducing by person" way, that will be a great addition. Like the previous peer review said, you might want a title for other major women who were mentioned in this group. Also I would suggest doing a "history" part, which put focus on the major events that happened to this group and "People" part which emphasizes on the people(what they did inside this group and why were they important). What's more, if you can find more sources, that will be awesome! Keep up the good work! Shikele (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to Peer Review

I think this is a good direction to go in. We could possibly incorporate information from the individuals’ article pages if there is enough crossover. We could either break up the women’s accomplishments under their headings or contribute them to a group in an accomplishments section (because the article discusses publications). Kadyb9 (talk) 15:29, 23 March 2018 (UTC)