Harriet Jacobs and Imogen Willis Eddy: Surprise Discoveries All Around

In researching the lives of Harriet Jacobs and the family of Nathaniel Parker Willis, I came across a mention that Willis’s daughter Imogen (born in 1842) worked at the Harvard College Observatory in the 1880s until her death in 1904.

Thus, I read Dava Sobel’s book The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars with interest. Great book, but alas no mention of our gal Imogen (full name by then, Imogen Willis Eddy). I contacted the author to see if she had something relevant in her files that did not make it into the book. Although she did not, she graciously put me in contact with two researchers at “the HCO,” Maria McEachern and Lindsay Smith Zrull. Among other responsibilities, they are part of a project to compile information about the female employees through 1975. The HCO, thanks to director Edward Pickering, was a pioneer in hiring women.

We emailed back and forth this past spring. They shared the little scraps they knew about Eddy, as well as several articles and a master’s thesis that supplemented Sobel’s book.

In turn, I shared the HCO’s connection with Harriet Jacobs through Imogen, which they did not know. Imogen is “baby Mary” in Jacobs’s book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Harriet Jacobs had other connections with Cambridge that are more well known. She ran two boarding houses there in the 1870s and is buried in Mount Auburn cemetery. (She also lived in Boston in the 1840s.)

Interesting as it all was, this is a tangent to my research and I tucked it away. But I couldn’t quite let it go. So a few weeks ago, I went back into my files, did some additional digging (especially on Imogen’s mysterious and disappearing husband), and wrote an article on the two women’s crossed paths in Cambridge.

You can read it on the History Cambridge blog or in an online publication called Cambridge Day.

A few additional pieces that could not make it into either article:

First, this wonderful photograph from the Harvard Archives of female computers and Mrs. Henry Draper (a significant donor). Best of all—Imogen is identified as the woman sitting in the middle of the group reading a book!

Imogen Willis Eddy among the Harvard computers (in the center, reading a book). From Harvard Archives, photo W289692_1

Second, Maria told me about her annual visits to Mt. Auburn Cemetery on Memorial Day to leave flowers at the graves of her family members. This year, knowing more about Harriet Jacobs, she stopped at the grave of Harriet and her daughter Louisa and left carnations. Coincidentally, a local TV station aired a report on the cemetery. When the cemetery staff member and the reporter stopped at the gravesite, Maria’s flowers were still there—and, in fact, are referred to during the report.

To watch Channel 5’s report about Mount Auburn and see the grave, click here

An article in the 1896 Los Angeles Times included a short interview with Imogen describing her work.

Finally, the women who worked at the HCO were a bit of a curiosity, given the limited opportunities for female employment. An article in the March 15, 1896 Los Angles Times, “Women See Stars,” describes the work of “thirteen clever women” and includes a quote from Imogen.

Identified as “the daughter of N.P. Willis, the poet [she was about 50 years old at the time],” she said,

We do all the computing connected with the meridian circle, our special work being to locate the position of certain stars…Harvard is the only college that employs women as mathematical computers. There are three of us here. To be really efficient a computer must understand algebra, geometry, trigonometry, the principles of astronomy, and the instruments. Of course, one can do routine work without this preparation, but in cases of error one is simply swamped with a less complete equipment.