Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 89 tions of shells, sea-mosses, and minerals have been stored away as private memorials of happy research and experimentation ! Field and forest, mountain and shore have been explored for treasures of science, by many a modest daughter of the soil or darling of lux- ury. A few of these early students, lifted into prominence by the persistency and value of their work, grace the record of woman’s intellectual achievement with a fame which we are proud to acknowledge. Maria Mitchell as a discoverer in astronomical science is a peer- ess of the realm in that exalted branch of research. A student from childhood with her father, an astronomer of repute, she watched from his observatory at Nan- tucket the suns and plan- ets in their majestic march through the stellar spaces; she took observations, com- puted orbits, recorded ce- lestial phenomena, resolved nebulae, studied sun-spots, the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, the color of stars, and prepared the American Nautical Almanac for many years, till October, 1847, s^ie hailed a new comet which “ swam into her ken.” For this discovery she received a gold medal from the King of Denmark and a copper medal from the republic of San Marino. Miss Mitchell POTTERY—Cincinnati Collection. United States. was fhe first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College on the open- ing of that institution, and later visited Europe, where she was the honored guest of Sir John Herschel, of Humboldt, and of Le Verriet. Her unaffected and unpretentious personality, as well as her honest and sober self-respect, made her a valued friend of great .scientists everywhere. She received the degree of LL. D. from Hanover in 1882, and from Columbia in 1887. She died January