ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

“even if the other man is a lady or a camera”: Women and the British Astronomical Association Expeditions

• In Event: Emerging from the Shadow: New Perspectives on Solar Eclipse Expeditions 1

English Abstract

Open to women from the start, the British Astronomical Association (BAA) was an amateur society that championed plurality of voices and practices. Relying on tourism and colonial infrastructures, the BAA organised several well-attended eclipse expeditions at the turn of the twentieth century. Often framed as lesser to the official British parties, the BAA expeditions have been used as evidence that women and amateurs were being swept to the margins of astronomy. This paper reconsiders these expeditions, arguing that two key perspective shifts are needed to understand the impact of this era for women pursuing astronomy.

Regardless of whether participants intended to pursue astronomy professionally, the BAA expeditions helped redefine the place of astronomy in the lives of largely upper and middle-class people, which is worthy of study in itself. Organised for relatively reasonable costs, participating in an expedition became more accessible. BAA participants championed alternative observational practices which could be pursued with minimal instrumental requirements. I will explore the work of Gertrude Bacon, who introduced “gathering gloom” photographs to measure coronal brightness, building up a network of observers who followed this method.

Rather than seeing membership of the official expeditions as the only way that one could embody astronomical authority, I will also highlight the importance of the amateur expeditions in contesting the place of women in astronomy. Annie Maunder was never able to join the official expedition parties, but the sharing of resources, ambitions and observation practices around eclipses gave her a chance to develop broader recognition from professionalising communities. She then actively used her status to construct an alternative image of the discipline of astronomy, where amateurs and women were welcome and valued contributors.

Author

• Megan Briers, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science