Fleming, Williamina Paton Stevens

Born Dundee, Scotland, 15 May 1857

Died Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 21 May 1911

American data analyst and “computer” Williamina Fleming devised, along with Edward Pickering , the first important system for classification of spectra of stars (after the very basic one of Angelo Secchi ) and classified more than 10,000 stars on that system. She was from a craftsman’s family and worked as a pupil-teacher from the age of 14. She married James Orr Fleming in Scotland, and they immigrated to Boston a year later, divorcing after the birth of their first child, whom Mrs. Fleming was left to support. Her first job was as housekeeper in the home of Pickering, the director of Harvard College Observatory. He was aware of her history as a student and teacher so that, when he allegedly criticized the work of a young man at the observatory by saying that his housekeeper could do better, it was not quite the insult it sounds. In any case, he soon employed Fleming at the observatory, first as a copyist...