Hitch Your Wagon

Thirty-three years ago a young Englishwoman asked to do graduate study in astronomy at Harvard. The Chairman of the Physics Department, of which astronomy was then a sub-division, was reluctant to admit her, saying he didn't want any women in his department. "But after all," the now middle-aged mother of three explains, "I had come all the way from England and they couldn't just send me home."

She had come here at the request of Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy, who met the young graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, after a lecture he gave in London. It was due to his insistence that she was permitted to stay.

Last summer Cecilia H. Payne-Gaposchkin became the first woman in the history of the University to attain the rank of full professor through regular faculty promotion. In September she assumed the duties of chairman of the Department of Astronomy.

Her interest in astronomy, Mrs. Gaposchkin says, began when she was five or six years old, "probably just rebellion as no one in the family had the slightest interest in the subject."

After receiving in 1925 the first Doctor of Philosophy degree ever granted at Radcliffe, Mrs. Gaposchkin remained at the Observatory to do research and teach. She became Phillips Astronomer in 1938. Last year she received an honorary A.M. degree from the University. On becoming a Harvard "alumnus," Mrs. Gasopschkin reportedly commented, "Maybe I should join the Harvard Club."

For almost three decades, Mrs. Gaposchkin has been an internationally-known authority in her particular field, variable stars. A variable star, she explains, is a star whose brightness changes, either because of its own pulsations or an eclipse with another star. Much of her research and writing has concerned the regularity of these variations, which are often, she states, "more accurate time-keepers than clocks."

Her prominence in her field brought Mrs. Gaposchkin the honor of membership in the British Royal Astronomical Society. In this country, Mrs. Gaposchkin, who was naturalized in 1931, is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A career woman in a primarily-male field, Mrs. Gaposchkin dresses plainly and wears no make-up. Her professionalism is most evident in her ultra-efficiency, her lucid speech, and her chain-smoking. Even while she talks, she keeps a cigarette in the center of her mouth between her teeth, lighting each successive cigarette from the preceding one.

Her undergraduate advises describe Mrs. Gaposchkin as an extremely busy professor who is "hard to get to see; but when you do see her, she is very interested in you as an individual." In the tradition of chairman in the small Astronomy Department, she acts as personal advisor to the nineteen undergraduate concentrators Her crowded schedule, however, is basically on the graduate level.

In addition to her current work as department chairman, Mrs. Gaposchkin is completing a book on novae, A nova is an explosive variety of variable star, which can best be described by a telegram that is a classic in astronomical circles: "Star Swells Up and Bursts."

On several books, among them Variable Stars published in 1938, Mrs. Gaposchkin collaborated with her husband, Sergei I. Gaposchkin, Astronomer in the College Observatory. Her husband, whose field is eclipsing stars, is a native of Russia, raised and educated in Germany. "We met at a conference in Germany," Mrs. Gaposchkin said, "and it was love at first sight." They were married here in 1934.

Since last August, Mr. Gaposchkin has been photographing the southern stars at the Australian Common-wealth Observatory, where former Harvard professor Bart J. Bok will soon assume directorship. Gaposchkin will resume his activities at Harvard next fall. Assisting him in Australia is his 16-year-old son, already an avid mathematician and astronomer. The Gaposchkins have two other children, a son studying electrical engineering as Tufts and a daughter majoring in Slavic languages at Swarthmore.

Cooking is Mrs. Gaposchkin's favorite homemaking task. She particularly likes to experiment with new recipes, declaring the pastime to be "just another form of reasearch." Mrs. Gaposchkin is also proficient at embroidering, knitting, and crocheting.

Despite her intense interest in her astronomical work, the busy professor and mother manages to maintain a remarkable degree of competence in subjects outside her field. Books on mythology and poetry line the walls of her Observatory office. Her textbook, Introduction to Astronomy, used in Astronomy 1, is spiked with apt quotations from classical mythology. As an undergraduate she won a college prize for a "critical essay on the Greek text of the Gospel of St. Matthew." ("It was a sitting duck," she says.)

As a girl, Mrs. Gaposchkin studied the violin seriously, and on occasions has played and conducted for the small orchestra at the Observatory. "The only career anyone ever urged me to take up was conducting," she admits.

Mrs. Gaposchkin firmly believes that a woman can combine successfully "either professional success and a family, or professional success and an active social life." But she doubts if any woman could be a success at all three, "unless she were a millionaire. I have to go home every night and fix dinner for my family," she adds.

When the University granted Mrs. Gaposchkin a full professorship, many of her students and colleagues felt that the honor was long overdue. She considers her promotion not so much a personal honor, but an indication of women's advance in all academic fields. She explains that she feels a particular responsibility to make a success of her new position in order to pave the way for other women with high aspirations.