The Woman Who Gave Us A Measuring Stick For The Heavens.
Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born July 4, 1868 in Lancaster Massachusetts, daughter of a Congressional Minister she grew up and attended Radcliffe College. Here she discovered astronomy and after graduating volunteered at Harvard College Observatory as a computer for seven years, eventually being appointed to permanent staff under Edward Pickering. Edward Charles Pickering became the director of the Harvard Observatory in 1876, and for the time was considered a progressive because he opened up the department to use women as “computers”. The story goes that Pickering fired his assistant, deeming him incapable of cataloging all the photos his department was taking of the night sky. He replaced him with his…
The Forgotten Father of Our Modern Foundation.
A conversation about the most influential people in history would bring up names like Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Jesus, Johannes Gutenberg, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. With each credited for laying down the foundation that an era could build on. In our own era, Vannevar Bush is widely unknown and could arguably be the most influential figure of modern times. Not only did his individual brilliance shine through his inventions and patents, but his leadership and character set the pace of our technological development, and paved the way for some of the greatest inventions in history. Born in Massachusetts, this son of a reverend loved to tinker from a young age…