Annie Jump Cannon graduated from Wellesley College in 1884, where she studied physics and astronomy. She returned home to Delaware after graduating, holding a variety of jobs and learning the then-new art of photography. Sometime during this period, Cannon lost her hearing, possibly due to scarlet fever. She returned to science in 1894, enrolling at Radcliffe College and eventually being hired by Edward C. Pickering at the Harvard College Observatory. Cannon worked on completing the Henry Draper Catalogue, an astronomical star catalog. She developed the Harvard system of spectral classification, which the International Astronomical Union adopted as the official system for the classification of solar spectra in 1922. Cannon is credited with manually classifying 350,000 stars, earning her the nickname “the census taker of the sky.” Her many awards include honorary doctorates from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Oxford University, the first woman so honored. She was also the first woman to become an officer in the American Astronomical Society.
Learn more at the National Women’s History Museum.