Cecilia works at a blink microscope. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives.

When Cecilia Payne was five years old, she saw a meteor and immediately decided to become an astronomer: "I was seized with panic at the thought that everything might be found out before I was old enough to begin," wrote Payne-Gaposhkin at the end of her life. Payne-Gaposchkin's career reflects her early and prodigious start; she published two major, enduring books on astronomy before the age of 30.

Payne-Gaposchkin's enthusiasm for science and math was not in keeping with her English upper-class girl's education, which strongly favored literary interests. In her autobiography The Dyer's Hand, she recalled that "When I won a coveted prize ... I was asked what book I would choose to receive. It was considered proper to select Milton, or Shakespeare. . . .I said I wanted a textbook on fungi. I was deaf to all expostulation: that was what I wanted, and in the end I got it, elegantly bound in leather as befitted a literary giant."

Cecilia Helena Payne, 1904. Courtesy of Katherine Haramundanis.

After attending the academically prestigious St. Paul's Girls School in London, Payne-Gaposchkin won a scholarship to study Natural Sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge University in 1919. At that time in England, a woman's postgraduate career opportunities were limited to teaching. A brilliant student more interested in physics than natural sciences, she was advised by a professor to pursue graduate studies at Radcliffe College in the more liberal United States. After earning a second-class bachelor's degree at Cambridge, she became a doctoral student at Harvard in 1924. The rich store of astronomical records at the Harvard Observatory, and the presence of a community of astronomers, created a nirvana for Payne-Gaposchkin from which she would never leave. In 1925, a brisk two years after her arrival in the United States, she became the first student, male or female, to earn a Ph.D. from the Harvard College Observatory. Her doctoral thesis, "Stellar Atmospheres," articulated her surprising discovery that stars are made up primarily of hydrogen and helium with traces of other elements. Prior to her work in the area, it had been believed that the chemical composition of stars was similar to that of the Earth. Seventy-five years after her scientific discoveries were first published, they are still valid.

While the United States was more open to women astronomers than England, Payne-Gaposchkin was given a marginal position at the Harvard Observatory following the extraordinary success of her doctoral studies. An article about her in American National Biography notes that she "informally advised students and occasionally taught courses under the name of the observatory director, Harlow Shapley." In 1930, she published her second book, Stars of High Luminosity , in which she attempted to provide an ordered account of observations of star behaviors. At one point, she considered leaving Harvard because of her low status and meager salary. Shapley, however, made efforts to improve her position, but it would not be until 1938 that she was made an official faculty member of Harvard University. Out of gratitude for the opportunities the United States had given her and out of the belief that a responsible adult in a community must be a voter, she became an American citizen in 1931.

Katherine, Edward, Sergei Gaposchkin, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in her office in 1946. Courtesy of Katherine Haramundanis.

In 1933 on a trip to Germany, she met the Russian astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin, whose political beliefs made him an exile of his native land and whose Russian nationality made him unwelcome in Hitler's Germany. Payne-Gaposchkin convinced Shapley to give the Russian astronomer a position at Harvard, thereby securing his physical safety as well as his career. Two years later, they were married. The Gaposchkins had three children, all of whom worked as astronomers for a period of time.

Payne-Gapochkin was a many-sided personality known for her wit,her literary knowledge, and for her personal friendships with individual stars. She became the first woman in the history of Harvard University to be promoted to full professor and the first woman department chair in 1956.

A September 1956 article in The Christian Register published by the American Unitarian Association, announced her appointment and described her as a member of the denomination's First Parish and Church in Lexington, Massachusetts. The article also gave an account of her close collaboration with her husband and their respective interests, hers in variable stars and his in eclipsing stars:"When we come to an eclipsing star, I would say to my husband, 'That is yours.' And when we would come to a pulsating star, I would say, 'That is mine.'"

Payne, standing behind Everett House. Courtesy of Katherine Haramundanis.

Payne-Gapochkin remained Chair of the Astronomy department and a full professor at Harvard for ten years. During that time, she published The Galactic Novae (1957) in which she noted patterns in observations of stars that had been made over a period of twenty-five years and pointed out areas worthy of further attention. Her book, An Introduction to Astronomy (1954) was based on the undergraduate astronomy course she taught at Radcliffe College. She also delivered a memorable series of lectures to non-astronomers entitled" Stars in the Making" (1953). Of her contributions to astronomy, her former student and fellow astronomer Jesse Greenstein wrote, "It led forward to important problems in the study of nuclear astrophysics, as well as in the use of variable stars of high luminosity, probing the structure and rotation of our Milky Way and the distances to other galaxies. Most important, it showed the bravery and adventure of a mind exploring the unknown with the available scientific apparatus and a complete belief in the power of human reason and logic."

After 1967, she was named Professor Emeritus of Harvard University. Her early education in Classical and English literature, greatly enriched her lifelong sense of inquiry and adventure.

Although she broke down formidable boundaries for women in her field, her autobiography, The Dyer's Hand, describes a career marked with slow promotions and low salaries. What sustained her were her intellectual interests and the rewards of her work. She wrote, "I simply went on plodding, rewarded by the beauty of the scenery towards an unexpected goal". To fellow scientists, she encouraged the same single-minded sense of purpose, noting that "Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other."

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Supplimental Reading Click Here

Recommended Reading

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography. Edited by Katherine Haramundanis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

A. G. Davis, Philip & Rebecca A. Koopmann, editors, The Starry Universe: The Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Centenary (Schenectady, NY: L. Davis Press, 2001). Note the chapter by Owen Gingerich, "The Most Brilliant Ph. D. Thesis Ever Written in Astronomy."