# Antonia Maury ![Antonia Maury standing inside the Plate Stacks holding notebook](/sites/g/files/omnuum2761/files/2026-03/Maury2.jpg) **Antonia Caetana** **de Paiva** **Pereira** **Maury** (March 21, 1866 - January 8, 1952) was an American astronomer who published an important early catalog of stellar spectra and contributed to our understanding of stars in motion, especially in binary systems. Maury came from a family with a rich pedigree in new astrophysics (her mother was a Draper, whose brother and father had made the first photographs of stellar spectra and the moon, respectively), and she earned a degree from Vassar College in 1887 with honors in physics, astronomy, and philosophy (pictured here in her senior portrait). In 1888, with her family's professional connections to Edward Pickering, she began work at HCO. However, she left in 1891, saying she “was uncomfortable completing her research if her work was unacknowledged.” She returned a few times over the next few years to finish her catalog of bright star spectra. While her relationship with Pickering was tense, he was well aware of her contributions to the observatory's work in both labor hours and scientific imagination. When her catalog was published in 1897, it became the first volume of the *Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of* Harvard College (v. 28) credited to a woman astronomer. Through the early twentieth century, she remained loosely connected to the HCO while working as a traveling lecturer in physics, returning for more serious work in the 1920s under director Harlow Shapley. Though astronomers did not adopt her schema for categorizing stars, her work was an early step in understanding how stars evolve as they age. Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung used her data in constructing the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, still in use today as the model of stellar evolution and type. [Read on](/antonia-maury/red-shift-spectroscopy-and-stellar-classification) for a sampling of Maury's science, from her work with binary stars, spectra, red-shifting, to her early theories about stellar type! *Stay tuned for more information in this ongoing project!* ## Research Resources Antonia Maury does not have a set of ‘papers’ or collection, rather she appears in the collections of and related to others. Here are some useful archival, and then non-archival, sources to further research. ### Archival Collections At Harvard #### A Search of “Maury” within [Papers of Dorrit Hoffleit, 1906-2005](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362) (Schlesinger Library, MC 529): - Subseries A. Alphabetical correspondence and papers: [Maury, Antonia, 1982, 1994, n.d. ](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00177) ITEM Identifier: MC 529, 22.3. - Subseries A. Alphabetical correspondence and papers: [Hoffleit, Dorrit: \[Tucson astronomical meeting:\] Hoffleit on Antonia Maury, 1993 ](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00146) ITEM Identifier: MC 529, 18.14. - Subseries A. Alphabetical correspondence and papers: [Miss Maury letters, 1943, 1949-1950; includes uncataloged photograph.](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00175) ITEM Identifier: MC 529, 22.1. - Subseries A. Alphabetical correspondence and papers: [Maury, Antonia: Draper 28-inch mirror \[article by Hoffleit\], 1952-1953](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00176) ITEM Identifier: MC 529, 22.2. - Subseries A. Alphabetical correspondence and papers: [Maury, Antonia: \[correspondence, clippings, and notes for article by Hoffleit\], 1915-1952 (scattered), 1969, 1977-1993, n.d. Includes photocopied transparencies.](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00174) ITEM Identifier: MC 529, 21.9-21.10. - Subseries B. Chronological correspondence and papers: [Chronological correspondence, 1924, 1929-1949; includes Antonia Maury et al. and uncataloged photograph.](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00362_sch00362c00247) ITEM — Box: 29 Identifier: MC 529, 29.6-29.8. #### A Search of “Maury” within [Records of the Harvard College Observatory Director Edward Charles Pickering](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua43018) (Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.14): - Correspondence files: [Maury, Antonia C., 1883 - 1903](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua43018_hua43018c05162) ITEM — Box: 169, Folder: 10 Identifier: UAV 630.14 - Correspondence files: [Maury, Antonia, Miss, 1907 - 1918](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua43018_hua43018c04092) ITEM — Box: 143, Folder: 9 Identifier: UAV 630.14 - Correspondence files: [Maury, A.C. (Miss), \[circa 1903\]](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua43018_hua43018c01087) ITEM — Box: 94, Folder: 90 Identifier: UAV 630.14 #### A Search of “Maury” within [Papers of Harlow Shapley, 1906-1966](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua03998) (Harvard University Archives, HUG 4773.xxx): Correspondence files: [Maury, Antonia C.](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua03998_hua03998c01560) ITEM — HUG 4773.10 Box 98 #### A Search of “Maury” within [Records of Harvard College Observatory Director Harlow Shapley, 1911-1952 and \[undated\]](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua40018) (Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.22): - [Matthias-Mayall, 1931-1940](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua40018_hua40018c00774) ITEM — Box: 42, Folder: 5 Identifier: UAV 630.22. “Contains correspondence with University of Wisconsin engineering professor Lynn H. Matthias, Swiss astronomer Georgette Maulbetsch, Irish astronomer Annie Russell Maunder, astronomer Antonia Maury…” - [Massachusetts Institute of Technology-McManus, 1922-1930 ](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hua40018_hua40018c00433) ITEM — Box: 12, Folder: 4 Identifier: UAV 630.22. “Contains correspondence with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J. Materna, Harvard University geology professor Kirtley F. Mather, astronomer Antonia Maury…” ### Notebooks, and Phaedra Logbooks at Wolbach Library [Harvard College Observatory observations, logs, instrument readings, and calculations](https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/wol00001) Antonia C. Maury Notebooks, 1894-1933 FILE Identifier: KG11365-6 [Maury’s logbooks](/project-phaedra-finding-aid) can be viewed digitally through Project PHaEDRA. ### Archival Collections At Vassar [Guide to the Vassar College Alumnae/i Biographical Files (AAVC), circa 1865-2015](https://digitallibrary.vassar.edu/collections/finding-aids/a6450c16-688e-4bdd-9621-b9f4221556b8#series1887) "Clippings, biographical information forms, correspondence, articles, and other items gathered by the Alumnae and Alumni of Vassar College (AAVC) on women who attended the college from 1865-1923, 1931-1934, and 1951-1958. The collection includes material on graduates, non-graduates, Special Students and Preparatory Students." Maury Graduated from Vassar in 1887. Her files are in Box 6. ### Secondary Sources [The Glass Universe](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Glass_Universe/AeY3DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) by Dava Sobel [Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and other Recollections](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cecilia_Payne_Gaposchkin/LYh6hZaMqZcC?hl=en&gbpv=0) by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Ed. Katharine Haramundanis [Women of the Moon : Tales of Science, Love, Sorrow, and Courage](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Women_of_the_Moon/426fDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) by Daniel R. Altschuler and Fernando J Ballesteros [Stellar Spectral Classification](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Stellar_Spectral_Classification/pskkEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0%20) by Richard O. Gray and Christopher J. Corbally [What the Stars are Made of : The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin](https://www.google.com/books/edition/What_Stars_Are_Made_Of/SgrMDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0%20) by Donovan Moore [The Biographical History of Women in Science: L-Z](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Biographical_Dictionary_of_Women_in/LTSYePZvSXYC?hl=en&gbpv=0%20) by Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Dorothy Harvey ### Biographical and Encyclopedic Sources [WorldCat](http:/worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n2014023774/) [Vassar Encyclopedia, Distinguished Alumni : Antonia Maury '1887](https://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/distinguished-alumni/antonia-maury/#:~:text=Antonia%20Maury%2C%20who%20spent%20her,%2C%20on%20January%208%2C%201952.) [Time Magazine](https://time.com/4262838/antonia-maury-astronomer/) [Oxford Reference](https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100141373)