American astronomer Antonia Maury (1866-1952) was notable as much for refusing to submit to obscurity as she was for her valuable research. The importance of her work was not fully recognized until late in her life. At the age of 77, Maury was awarded the Annie J. Cannon Prize by the American Astronomical Society.

Maury was a woman ahead of her time. She was driven by her convictions rather than the agenda set by the scientific community. Maury demanded to be acknowledged as the author of her work, a gesture commonly denied to contemporary women scientists. Spending long hours in tedious and painstaking observation of the spectral emissions of stars, she invented her own system of star classification that was ignored as cumbersome by her Harvard contemporaries. However, her system was the stepping stone to discoveries that constitute the very foundation of modern stellar astrophysics.

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