Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer who, in 1847, by using a telescope, discovered a comet which as a result became known as Miss Mitchells Comet. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery which was presented to her by King Frederick VI of Denmark. On the medal was inscribed Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus in Latin . Mitchell was the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.
Maria Mitchell was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. She was the greatgreatgreatgreat granddaughter of Peter Foulger and Mary Morrill Foulger, and through them was a first cousin four times removed of Benjamin Franklin. She had nine brothers and sisters. Her parents, William Mitchell and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, were Quakers. Maria Mitchell was born into a community unusual for its time in regard to equality for women. Her parents, like other Quakers, valued education and insisted on giving her the same quality of education that boys received. One of the tenets of the Quaker religion was intellectual equality between the sexes. Additionally, Nantuckets importance as a whaling port meant that wives of sailors were left for months and sometimes years to manage affairs while their husbands were at sea, thus fostering an atmosphere of relative independence and equality for the women who called the island home.
Source: Wikipedia