Maud Worcester Makemson

Maud Lavon Worcester was born in 1891 in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. She attended Girls' Latin School in Boston. She briefly attended Radcliffe College, but left to teach school. In high school and college she studied Latin, Greek, French, and German, and during school breaks she independently learned Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese.{{Cite web |title=Maud W. Makemson |url=https://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/faculty/prominent-faculty/maud-w-makemson/ |access-date=2024-03-06 |language=en}} In 1911, her family moved to Pasadena, California. She was working as a journalist in Bisbee, Arizona when she took an interest in astronomy. She returned to California and taught school while taking correspondence courses and summer classes to qualify for admission to the University of California. She earned a bachelor's degree from UCLA in 1925, followed by a master's degree in 1927 and a PhD from University of California at Berkeley in 1930.[https://books.google.com/books?id=t-BF1CHkc50C&lpg=PA729 "Maud Worcester Makemson"] in Thomas Hockey, et al., eds., Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (Spring Science 2007): 729. {{ISBN|9780387304007}} Studying under Armin Leuschner, her doctoral work involved calculating the orbits of asteroids.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3019405/maud_w_makemson_as_a_doctoral_student/ "Woman Hunts Waifs of Sky"] Oakland Tribune (September 9, 1928): 8A. via Newspapers.com {{open access}}

In 1930, Makemson became an instructor of astronomy at the University of California before moving to Rollins College to teach mathematics and astronomy.{{Citation |last=Bell |first=Trudy E. |title=Makemson, Maud Worcester |date=2014 |work=Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |pages=1385–1387 |editor-last=Hockey |editor-first=Thomas |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_891 |access-date=2024-03-06 |place=New York, NY |publisher=Springer |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_891 |isbn=978-1-4419-9917-7 |editor2-last=Trimble |editor2-first=Virginia |editor3-last=Williams |editor3-first=Thomas R. |editor4-last=Bracher |editor4-first=Katherine}}

She joined the Vassar College faculty as an assistant astronomy professor in 1932; she became a full professor in 1944. In 1936, she succeeded Caroline Furness as director of the Vassar Observatory.[https://books.google.com/books?id=gPGZJ_YuMwgC&lpg=PA650 "Maud Worcester Makemson"] in Tiffany K. Wayne, American Women of Science Since 1900 (ABC-Clio 2011): 650. {{ISBN|9781598841589}}

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941 to study Maya astronomy,[http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/maud-worcester-makemson/ "Maud Worcester Makemson"] Guggenheim Foundation Fellows. and was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan and India in 1953-1954. In Japan, she taught three courses at Ochanomizu Women's University in Tokyo on the history of astronomy, "scientific reading," and "Shelly's lyrics."{{Cite web |title=Vassar Chronicle 21 November 1953 — Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive |url=https://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/?a=d&d=vcchro19531121-01.2.28&srpos=3&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-maud+makemson------- |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=newspaperarchives.vassar.edu}} Makemson's interest in non-Western astronomical knowledge resulted in several monographs, The Morning Star Rises: An Account of Polynesian Astronomy (1941),Maud Worcester Makemson, [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Morning_Star_Rises.html?id=Pj0eAAAAIAAJ The Morning Star Rises: An Account of Polynesian Astronomy] (Yale University Press 1941). The Astronomical Tables of the Maya (1943),Maud Worcester Makemson, The Astronomical Tables of the Maya (Johnson Reprint Corporation 1943). The Maya Correlation Problem (1946),Maud Worcester Makemson, The Maya Correlation Problem (University of California 1946). and The Book of the Jaguar Priest (1951, a translation of a sixteenth-century text).Maud Worcester Makemson, [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_book_of_the_Jaguar_Priest.html?id=w2Y1AAAAMAAJ The Book of the Jaguar Priest] (Schuman 1951). Makemson used her translation of The Book of the Jaguar Priest to defend the "correlation between the Maya and Christian calendars."{{Cite web |title=Vassar Chronicle 15 October 1949 — Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive |url=https://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/?a=d&d=vcchro19491015-01.2.37&srpos=4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-maud+makemson------- |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=newspaperarchives.vassar.edu}}

Makemson retired from Vassar in 1957, then taught astronomy at UCLA. She co-authored a textbook, Introduction to Astrodynamics (1960) with Robert M. L. Baker, Jr.Robert M. L. Baker and Maud Worcester Makemson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NKRTAAAAMAAJ Introduction to Astrodynamics] (Academic Press 1960).[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3019552/baker_makemson_on_astrodynamics/ "Write Text on Problems of Space Flight"] Valley News (March 30, 1961): 86. via Newspapers.com {{open access}} In the 1960s, she joined the Applied Research Laboratories of General Dynamics, to consult with NASA on lunar exploration. She worked on the problem of selenography,Maud Worcester Makemson, Determination of Selenographic Latitude and Longitude by Star Observations from the Far Side of the Moon (General Dynamics 1965). developing a way for astronauts standing on the moon to locate themselves precisely.[https://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/faculty/prominent-faculty/maud-w-makemson.html "Maud W. Makemson"] Vassar College Encyclopedia.

Among her undergraduate students at Vassar was astronomer Vera Rubin, to whom she gave a celestial globe.Vera Rubin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=OVBUt6yrMtAC&lpg=PR15&dq=Makemson%20Vera%20Rubin&pg=PA71 Bright Galaxies, Dark Matters] (Springer Science 1997): 71. {{ISBN|9781563962318}}

Maud Worcester married Thomas Emmet Makemson in 1912; they had three children together before their divorce in 1919. Makemson died on Christmas Day in 1977, in Weatherford, Texas. Her son Donald E. Worcester (who used his mother's original surname) was an author and a history professor at Texas Christian University.[http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw/00215/tsw-00215.html "Donald Emmet Worcester: An Inventory of His Papers"] Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University.

{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Makemson, Maud Worcester}}

Category:American women astronomers

Category:1891 births

Category:1977 deaths

Category:Vassar College faculty

Category:20th-century American women scientists

Category:People from Center Harbor, New Hampshire

Category:American women academics

Category:Boston Latin Academy alumni