Herschel's Sister was Cheaper than a Male Assistant

Herschel made no bones about the fact that a female assistant, even his sister, would cost half as much as a male. It is possible to be indignant about this, but contemporary standards must be taken into account. Female domestic servants were paid �10 per annum, while a highly trained governess like Mary Wollstonecraft was paid �40 per annum by Lord Kingsborough in 1787. In fact a �60 stipend would have been handsome, exactly one-fifth of that paid to the Astronomer Royal. In Europe women who wanted to pursue science, like Voltaire�s beautiful mathematician Madame du Ch�telet, or later Marie-Anne Paulze (Madame Lavoisier), simply had to have supportive or (even better) dead husbands, or private incomes. In Britain they had to be schoolteachers or children�s textbook writers, preferably both: like Margaret Bryan (astronomy), Priscilla Wakefield (botany) or Jane Marcet (chemistry). Only in the next generation was it possible to have a career like the physicist Mary Somerville, and (eventually) have an Oxford college named after you. But then, Caroline did live long enough to exchange letters with Mary Somerville drily remarking on this situation.

Notes:

A short survey of other female scientists working at the time.

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The Age of Wonder

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Holmes , Richard (2010-03-02), The Age of Wonder, Vintage, Retrieved on 2012-01-02

Source Material [books.google.com]

Folksonomies: history enlightenment science