Anne Sewell Young

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Anne Sewell Young (January 2, 1871 – August 15, 1961) was an American astronomer and a longtime professor at Mount Holyoke College. She helped build the college’s astronomy program and was one of the eight founders of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). She also contributed many observations of variable stars over thirty years.

Early life and education
Young was born in Bloomington, Wisconsin, to Reverend Albert Adams Young and Mary Sewell. Her family had a strong astronomy tradition. Her grandfather Ira Young was a professor of natural philosophy and astronomy, and other relatives worked at Dartmouth College’s observatory. She earned a Bachelor of Letters from Carleton College in 1892, then taught math at Whitman College in Washington for three years. She returned to Carleton to earn a Master of Science in 1897 and later earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1906. Her doctoral work studied photographs of star clusters in Perseus.

Career at Mount Holyoke College
Young joined Mount Holyoke College in 1898 and became the director of the John Payson Williston Observatory, where she led studies of sunspots. She organized events for students at the observatory and in 1925 arranged a special train trip for Mount Holyoke students to central Connecticut to observe a total solar eclipse.

Research, teaching, and AAVSO
Young had a strong interest in variable stars and corresponded with Edward Charles Pickering of the Harvard College Observatory. She helped found the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and was one of its eight founders. Over 33 years she contributed more than 6,500 variable-star observations and served as president in 1923. In 1929 she identified the comet 31P/Schwassmann–Wachmann with an object that had been misidentified decades earlier.

Retirement and later life
Young retired from Mount Holyoke College in 1936 at age 65 and became professor emerita. She was succeeded as director of the Williston Observatory by her former student, Alice Hall Farnsworth. She moved to Claremont, California, with her sister and died there on August 15, 1961, at the age of 90.