As a researcher of deaf history, including deaf women’s history, I work to illuminate the often hidden history of deaf people and their unique contributions to the world. I have unearthed historical information about deaf women suffragists and assembled it into an online collection chronicling what is known—so far—about these women and their lives.
Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay, and lack of recognition, countless deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including for the right to vote.
Underpaid and Discriminated Against
Annie Jump Cannon was a pioneering astronomer. Born in 1863, she experienced progressive hearing loss starting at a young age. One of the first women from Delaware to attend college, she was her class valedictorian when she graduated from Wellesley College, where she excelled in the sciences and mathematics.
In 1896, she was hired as a “woman computer” at the Harvard College Observatory, along with another prominent deaf astronomer, Henrietta Swan Leavitt.
The work involved looking at photos of stars and calculating their brightness, position, and color. The two were paid between 25 and 50 cents an hour—half the rate paid to men doing similar work.
Nevertheless, Cannon is credited with cataloging 350,000 stars. Building on others’ work, Cannon revolutionized and refined a system to rank stars from hottest to coolest that is still used today by the International Astronomical Union, though it is named for Harvard, not for her.
Cannon was a member of the National Woman’s Party, formed in 1916 to advocate for passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women to vote. Cannon’s suffragist efforts used her profession as a launchpad, as when she declared that “if women can organize the sky, we can organize the vote.”
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