This biography of Johanna C. Mackie was sourced from the Harvard Plate Stacks website on January 14, 2024. It was written by Samantha Notick, Curatorial Assistant at the Harvard Plate Stacks, in 2022. Please note that this information may have been updated since it was added to our database; for the most current information, check their website at https://platestacks.cfa.harvard.edu.
Born: 26 December 1860, United Kingdom
Died: 31 July 1943
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Johanna Stevens, Jean, Joan
Johanna Creighton Stevens Mackie (Dec 26 1860 – July 31 1943) worked at the Harvard College Observatory from 1903 to 1920. She was the sister of Mrs. Williamina Fleming. She has been occasionally referenced as ‘Jean’ or ‘Joan’.
While at Harvard, Mrs. Mackie discovered at least 7 variable stars with the plate comparison method used at the time. These discoveries include Nova Ophiuchi (RS Ophiuchi), noted at the time for its unusual fluctuations. She discovered this and other stars as part of her work to study, systematically, the changes in the night sky. She and Miss Ida Woods would layer a new plate, taken the previous day, over a plate taken previously. Any changes observed with a two inch magnifying lens were then noted. Mrs. Mackie conducted the search of the northern half of the Milky Way, Miss Woods the Southern half. 1
Mrs. Mackie was also named by Pickering as one of the assistants to Miss Cannon’s work on the Henry Draper Memorial Catalog, funded by Anna Palmer Draper. Those who assisted Miss Cannon were responsible for proofreading the hundreds of pages of tables and accompanying text, and calculating the positions and magnitudes of all the over 200,000 stars included.2
Mrs. Mackie was born in Dundee, Scotland to Robert and Mary Stevens, the fifth of six children.3 She lived with her mother’s family for several years, and then by 1881 had moved in with her sister’s family and was working as a dressmaker.4 In 1884, Johanna C Stevens married James Mackie, an English tailor and they emigrated to the United States.5 The couple had one child, a daughter also named Johanna, in 1885. According to the 1900 Federal Census, their daughter was born in Scotland, and did not join them in the United States until 1890.6 By 1909, they had moved to Cambridge and lived there for several years during Mrs. Mackie’s time at the Observatory, moving to other places in the Boston area beginning in 1912.7 Johanna Mackie passed away July 31st, 1943, in New Hampshire, at the age of 89.8
Works cited
1-“WOMEN DISCOVER NEW STAR” The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe. Pg 33. Dec. 21, 1919. Via ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
2-Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took Measure of the Stars (New York: Viking, 2016), 171.
3-Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. Accessed via Ancestrylibrary, 2022.
4-Scotland. 1871 Scotland Census. Reels 1-191. General Register Office for Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland : Scotland. 1881 Scotland Census. Reels 1-338. General Register Office for Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
5-Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, Massachusetts, 1891-1943. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC. Accessed via Ancestrylibrary, 2022.
6-1900 United States Census, Characteristics of Population. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Accessed via Ancestrylibrary, 2022.
7-“U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995;” Cambridge, Massachusetts. Digital images. Accessed via Ancestrylibrary.com, 2022.
8-“New Hampshire, Death and Disinterment Records, 1754–1947.” Online index and digital images. New England Historical Genealogical Society. New Hampshire Bureau of Vital Records, Concord, New Hampshire. Accessed via Ancestrylibrary.com, 2022.