Annie Jump Cannon (/ˈkænən/; December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification.

[2] With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types.

She was the eldest of three daughters born to Wilson Cannon, a Delaware shipbuilder and state senator, and his second wife, Mary Jump.

[4] Cannon's mother was the first person to teach her the constellations and she encouraged her to follow her own interests, suggesting that she pursue studies in mathematics, chemistry, and biology at Wellesley College.

In 1880, Cannon was sent to Wellesley College in Massachusetts, one of the top academic schools for women in the US, where she studied physics and astronomy.

[10] Cannon studied under Sarah Frances Whiting, one of the few women physicists in the United States at the time, and went on to become the valedictorian at Wellesley College.

[10] In order to gain access to a better telescope, Cannon enrolled at Radcliffe College in 1894 as a "special student", continuing her studies of astronomy.

This left the problem to the ideas of Henry Draper's niece Antonia Maury (who insisted on a complex classification system) and Williamina Fleming (who was overseeing the project for Pickering,[15] and wanted a much more simple, straightforward approach).

After absorption lines were understood in terms of stellar temperatures, her initial classification system was rearranged to avoid having to update star catalogs.

[16] Cannon and the other women at the observatory, including Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Antonia Maury, and Florence Cushman, were criticized at first for being "out of their place" and not being housewives.

[22] Cannon dominated this field because of her "tidiness" and patience for the tedious work and even helped the men in the observatory gain popularity.

Cannon helped broker partnerships and exchanges of equipment between men in the international community and assumed an ambassador-like role outside of it.

[23]In 1935, she created the Annie J. Cannon Prize for "the woman of any country, whose contributions to the science of astronomy are the most distinguished.

Her calm and hardworking attitude and demeanor helped her gain respect throughout her lifetime and paved the path for future women astronomers.

[35] She discovered 300 variable stars, five novas, and one spectroscopic binary, creating a bibliography that included about 200,000 references.