AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The Williamina Fleming Collection at John G. Wolbach Library comprises 679 astronomical glass plate photographs which represent the discoveries, research, and working process of the Women Computers and Astronomers at Harvard College Observatory (HCO) from 1885 to 1992. The plates in the collection were individually selected from over 550,000 photographs due to their historical and scientific significance as the plates document discoveries of galaxies, nebulae, and celestial bodies, and lay the groundwork for our current understanding of the size of the universe and distances between stars. The photographs are unique within the larger collection as they retain the annotations done by the Women Computers on both the jackets and the plates which were erased from the rest of the collection during a digitization campaign from 2004 to 2020. These markings document the process that led to the historic discoveries and represent one of the few historical records of the otherwise invisible labor of the women who facilitated them.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, HCO shifted priorities to embrace a more holistic preservation of the photographs. This began a multi-year collaboration between HCO, Wolbach Library, Weissman Preservation Center, and the Center for Nanoscale Systems to address the preservation needs of the Williamina Fleming Collection.

In the course of this project, we conducted a detailed survey of the inks, historic repairs, condition of each plate, and relevant annotations taken on the plate jackets. This was followed by rehousing of the plates in custom boxes. The boxes were designed to maximize airflow while keeping the storage space and weight at a minimum to allow the collection to be accessible and to fit seamlessly with existing workflows for accessing and handling the over half a million plates in the collection. In addition, housings had to allow for the original jackets to be stored along with the plate to retain the scientific and historical metadata written on them. This project revealed surprising new information about the history and use of one of the most important collections of astronomical photography in the world, and was instrumental in the continued championing of these historically overlooked women scientists.

This talk will explore the history, survey, rehousing, treatment, and development of exhibition guidelines for the glass plates.