Sarah Elizabeth Whitin

[3] Sarah Elizabeth Whitin was elected to the Wellesley College Board of Trustees in 1896 and immediately took a keen interest in campus activities, especially the study of astronomy.

[5]In the fall of 1898 [Whitin] proposed to give, and the Trustees voted to accept with gratitude, "a [12-inch] telescope and a simple building to house the instrument."

When it was formally opened on October 8, 1900, [President] Hazard could report that it housed "a 12" refractor with micrometer, polarizing photometer, and star and sun spectroscopes.

"[2][5]When the observatory opened October 8, 1900, Professor Whiting became its first director[5][6] and the college received "congratulatory letters from famous women astronomers in Europe.

"[2][5][6] Soon after completion of the observatory, Professor Whiting began exploring plans for an expansion and went back to Mrs. Whitin, as she wrote in the trustee's obituary, which appeared in The Wellesley College News.

[3]"I knew from the first that it was not large enough for the kind of work we wished to do, and that the nearest college residence hall was too far off for the astronomical staff to be present for the nightly vigil with the stars.

Various compromise building materials for the addition were discussed, but after many consultations with the architect, she declared that "marble and copper were good enough," and by 1906 the observatory was doubled with increased equipment, and a house placed beside it, completing a harmonious group, and itself a lovely specimen of domestic architecture.