Come Meet Maria Mitchell. This presentation will be facilitated by Cindy Reilly, Acupuncturist and Owner of Mountain Peony Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine. It will be held at Equinox Village (49 Maple Street, Manchester Center) on Wednesday, March 11 at 4 p.m. Free and Open the Public (please RSVP).

The first professional female astronomer in the United States. After discovering a comet in 1847, Maria became the world famous “lady astronomer” from Nantucket, MA. Largely self-educated, she traveled broadly meeting and befriending many of the leading scientists of Europe and Russia. She was the first professor hired at Vassar College and arguably the first professor of astrophysics in the US. Her students became quite accomplished, publishing their research in academic and scientific journals of the day. Later, during the Victorian Era when educational opportunities for women we being challenged, Maria became a co-founding leader of the American Association for the Advancement of Women.

Counted among her friends were the Alcotts, the Hawthornes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mary Livermore, Elizabeth Candy Stanton, and John Greenleaf Whittier. As one of her students described, “The only thing more remarkable than her accomplishments was Maria Mitchell herself.”

Residents & the Public Invited. Cindy will also be presenting this to three different groups at a community college in San Antonio.