• ASTRONOMER who created the modern stellar classification system
• Observed the skies as a child with her mother
• Attended Wellesley College, studying with astronomer Sarah Whiting
• In 1896 she became an assistant, or "human computer," at the Harvard College Observatory as part of the team reporting to astronomer Edward Pickering
• Changed the Harvard Classification Scheme to be based on stellar temperature -- this system is still used today
• Published The Henry Draper Catalogue and The Henry Draper Extension, which together classify a whopping 350,000 stars (Just to be clear, she classified them. All of them.)
• Also published nine smaller catalogues and several short papers, providing contemporary and future astronomers with a vast amount of data for study
• Stayed at the Harvard Observatory for more than forty years until she retired in 1940, serving as curator of its astronomical photographs
• Given one of the FIRST appointments of a woman at Harvard when she became the William Cranch Bond Astronomer
• Supported women's suffrage as a member of the National Woman's Party (founded by Alice Paul)
• Received six honorary degrees, as well as numerous awards, including the Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and the Nova Medal from the American Association of Variable Star Observers
• Made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1914
• Has a lunar crater named after her
• Nearly deaf for most of her life

Photo by Schlesinger Library, RIAS, Harvard University [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Evans, Claire L. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2018. Print.
Ogilvie, Marilyn B. "Cannon, Annie Jump." Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, Vol. 1, Routledge, 2000, 227-228.

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