Her father was strongly opposed to slavery and the slave trade, and managed a station of the Underground Railroad.

Her parents instilled in her a strong Puritan belief, making her a person of high moral principles.

Her uncle, David Lowe, a Kansas judge, who served for one term in Congress, refused to seek re-election because he found "politics and ideal honesty incompatible."

In 1879 Byrd worked as the principal of Wabash High School in Indiana until 1882, when she left to study astronomy at Harvard College Observatory under Dr. E.C.

[5] Byrd had a particular research interest in "fixing positions of comets by micrometer measures of their distance from known stars.

"[1] In 1906, Byrd, at the height of her career, resigned from her positions at Smith because the college accepted money from Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, which she found reprehensible.