Slocum, Frederick

Born Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, 6 February 1873

Died Middletown, Connecticut, USA, 4 December 1944

American astrometrist Frederick Slocum contributed to the early twentieth-century effort to measure parallaxes for large numbers of stars. The son of Frederick and Lydia (née Jones) Slocum, Frederick earned bachelor’s (1895), master’s (1896), and doctoral (1898) degrees from Brown University. Slocum married Carrie E. Tripp in 1899; the couple had no children.

Slocum was appointed assistant professor of astronomy at Brown University (1900–1909). He received additional training in astrophysics at Potsdam Observatory and returned to teach that subject at Yerkes Observatory (1909–1914). In 1914, Slocum was appointed professor of astronomy and director of Wesleyan University’s Van Vleck Observatory, and apart from 2 years spent as a visiting instructor in nautical science at Brown University (1918–1920), remained in those positions until his retirement.

Slocum participated in efforts...