Although the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has not occupied this building since 1955 and now is located in Cambridge, its roots are in Boston. Founded during the American Revolution to promote the arts and sciences, it was open only to men until 1943. The exception was astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818-89), who was elected to the academy in 1848 and for a century held that exclusive position in history. Soon after women were granted suffrage, the academy reconsidered its policy of electing only men to its membership. Even though a survey showed 147 members in favor and only 72 opposed, the academy did not elect women until 1943 when it admitted four women including another astronomer, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-79) of Harvard. In 1976 Elma Lewis, the founder of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Roxbury, was elected to membership. Currently about twenty percent of the academy’s new members each year are women. Maria Mitchell was a favorite of nineteenth-century Boston women, and her annual visit to speak at the New England Women’s Club was much celebrated. She grew up on Nantucket, where she learned celestial navigation from her father. In 1847 her discovery of a comet brought her fame and induction into the academy. Mitchell was a strong proponent of women’s rights and helped found the Association for the Advancement of Women. She said, “The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spider web of the micrometer.” She also observed that, “Until women throw off reverence for authority, they will not develop. When they do this…the truth which they get will be theirs and their minds will go on and on, unfettered.” Mitchell became Vassar College’s first woman science professor and director of their observatory. Her observatory and birthplace are maintained by the Maria Mitchell Science Center on Nantucket Island.
