Records of Harvard College Observatory Director Harlow Shapley

Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), astronomer and Director of the Harvard College Observatory from 1921 to 1952, was born on November 2, 1885 in Nashville, Missouri. He studied astronomy at the University of Missouri, earning his BA in 1910 and his MA in 1911. Shapley then received a fellowship at Princeton University, studying Cepheid variables and eclipsing binaries under Henry Norris Russell, and obtained his PhD in 1913. A year later, he joined the staff of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California, where he remained until 1921, when he came to Harvard. Shapley was appointed Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy and director of the Harvard College Observatory in 1921, following the death of the previous director, Edward Charles Pickering. While at Harvard, Shapley mentored many young astronomers from around the world, and in the late 1930s, helped many European refugee scientists emigrate safely to the United States. While director of the Observatory, Shapley is credited with modernizing its equipment, collaborating with scientists from across the world, increasing the scope and number of its publications, and training a new generation of astronomers. During his tenure as director, the Observatory classified hundreds of thousands of stellar spectra that disclosed the chemical composition of the stars and catalogued of external galaxies. He retired from the Observatory in 1952, but continued teaching until 1956. Shapley wrote several books and received many honors and awards throughout his career, including the Henry Draper Medal in 1926, the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1933, the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1950, and a crater on the moon is named after him. From 1947 to 1948, he was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Shapley was also politically active, particularly during World War II; in November 1946, he was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities to answer questions about the Massachusetts Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, of which he was chairman. Then, in the late 1940s, Shapley led several meetings of left-wing organizations to which Russian delegates were invited, leading Senator Joseph McCarthy to name him as one of five alleged Communists connected with the State Department. Shapley was eventually absolved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1950.

Shapley married Martha Betz (1891–1981) in April 1914. Betz, a mathematician and astronomer, assisted her husband in astronomical research both at Mount Wilson and at the Harvard College Observatory, producing many articles on eclipsing stars and other subjects. The couple had one daughter and four sons. Harlow Shapley died in Boulder, Colorado on October 20, 1972.

In 1839, the Harvard Corporation appointed William Cranch Bond the first Astronomical Observer to the University, thereby taking the first step in establishing the Harvard College Observatory, after which the first telescope was installed in 1847. Scholars and students had studied astronomy at Harvard since the seventeenth century, but it wasn’t until a large comet sparked public interest in 1843 that donors began donating funds to build an observatory. During the tenure of the Harvard College Observatory’s first three directors, William Cranch Bond (1839-1859), George Phillips Bond (1859-1865), and Joseph Winlock (1866-1875), much of the Observatory’s research focused on lunar photography and chronometric activities to establish American longitude and to operate a time service for the United States government and commercial interests. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, under the direction of Edward C. Pickering (1877-1919), research shifted from celestial mechanics and positional astronomy to astrophysics. The Observatory developed into a major research institution, focusing on photographic star surveys, spectroscopic analysis, and culminating in publication of the Henry Draper Catalogue, with spectroscopic classifications for 225,300 stars. During Pickering’s tenure, many women astronomers, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, and Williamina Fleming performed essential research at the Observatory.

During the next several years, the Observatory became an important center for astronomical training and research, and building relationships with other institutions. Harlow Shapley, director from 1921 to 1952, inaugurated a program of graduate study in astronomy. Mandating that public education be a part of the Observatory’s mission, Shapley required students in the Harvard program to present lectures on astronomy to public school children. Donald H. Menzel (1952-1966) arranged a cooperative relationship with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (founded in 1890) and its relocation to Cambridge in 1955. Financial support for the Observatory expanded under Leo Goldberg (1966-1970), and in 1973 George B. Field (1972-1983) created an administrative umbrella organization, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, to coordinate the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory’s programs. Today, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics continues studies in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education, while the Harvard College Observatory supports Harvard’s Department of Astronomy.