Both Ava and Megan touch upon the similarity between the Harvard astronomers and Caroline Hershel’s story, as told by Michael Hoskin. I agree that both of these are framed very similarly, in ways which try to minimize their accomplishments. What struck me, however, was how differently Caroline was treated in this article versus how the Harvard astronomers were treated by des Jardins.
Many of the female astronomers working at Harvard lacked formal education – one of the women was an immigrant housekeeper before being placed in the lab, yet des Jardins makes it clear how important their discoveries were and how they deserved more credit than they ever received. Hoskin starts out his discussion of Caroline’s many discoveries by saying that her discoveries weren’t as important as some construe and she was just an “observer.” Ava mentions Hoskin’s use of the word sweeping to describe Caroline’s scientific work, and I found many more instances where Hoskin’s language belittled Caroline and her achievements. When Caroline discovered an astronomical phenomenon and showed her brother, Hoskin theorizes that “so no doubt he was impressed with what his little sister had to show him,” placing a power structure on their relationship. This might have been the case, especially considering the time period, but Hoskin doesn’t base it on any fact, and the sentence only serves to remind readers that Caroline was younger and apparently seeking her brother’s approval.
Hoskin also framed William’s mistake of building a telescope for Caroline that she couldn’t work as her fault – William “overlooked her physical limitations,” somehow making it Caroline’s fault that she was too short. Hoskin then goes on to classify Caroline’s choice to move out a “disastrous decision,” because she could no longer stargaze as easily, which is interesting considering he spends to much time talking about how she didn’t seem to enjoy astronomy. Anyway, this got a bit away from me, but I just found it interesting to think about how des Jardins treats the women astronomers versus how Hoskin treats Caroline Hershel.
