Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics

The story of one of America's first professional astronomers and the changes that led to science being a male-dominated field

There are a number of intellectual women from the 19th century whose crucial roles in the philosophical, social, and scientific debates that roiled the era have not been fully examined.Among them is the astronomer Maria Mitchell.

Given the relative dearth of women scientists today, most of us assume that science has always been a masculine domain. But as Renée Berglan...