Women in the history of variable star astronomy

Until the application of dry-plate photography to astronomy, very few women were involved in astronomical observations. Then, from the mid-1880s to the mid-1950s, women, especially at Harvard College Observatory, contributed more data on variable stars than did their male counterparts. By 1959 women had discovered over 75% of the 14,708 named variable stars then known. Williamina Fleming discovered spectral peculiarities by which certain types of variables could be recognized; Henrietta Leavitt discovered the period-luminosity relation for Cepheids; and others contributed to the amassing of statistical data on types of variability, periods, and space distributions. In more recent years, especially beginning with Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, more emphasis has been put on theoretical studies for interpreting why the stars vary as they do.