Editing Sarah Frances Whiting (section)

==[[Biography]]==
Sarah was one of the two daughters of Elizabeth Lee Comstock Whiting and Joel Whiting.<ref>{{Citation |last=Stahl |first=Frieda A. |title=Whiting, Sarah Frances |date=2014 |work=Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |pages=2327–2329 |editor-last=Hockey |editor-first=Thomas |url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1467 |access-date=2025-03-17 |place=New York, NY |publisher=Springer |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1467 |isbn=978-1-4419-9917-7 |editor2-last=Trimble |editor2-first=Virginia |editor3-last=Williams |editor3-first=Thomas R. |editor4-last=Bracher |editor4-first=Katherine}}</ref> Whiting was interested from an early age in science by her father, who taught [[natural philosophy]]. She would often attend and help setup presentations for his classes. Whiting graduated from [[Ingham University]] in 1865, after which she taught classics and mathematics at [[Brooklyn Heights Seminary]], a girls' secondary school in [[Brooklyn]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Cameron|first1=John S.|last2=Musacchio|first2=Jacqueline Marie|date=2020-08-01|title=Sarah Frances Whiting and the "photography of the invisible"|journal=Physics Today|volume=73|issue=8|pages=26–32|doi=10.1063/PT.3.4545|issn=0031-9228|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Whiting was appointed by [[Wellesley College]] president [[Henry Fowle Durant]], one year after the College's 1875 opening, as its first professor of physics. She established its physics department and the undergraduate experimental physics lab at Wellesley, the second of its kind to be started in the country. 
At the request of Durant, she attended lectures at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] given by [[Edward Charles Pickering]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Palmieri |first=Patricia Ann |title=In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1995 |isbn=9780300063882 |location=New Haven}}</ref> Through attending Pickering's classes, Whiting observed the techniques of teaching science through laboratory work, which was then new to the United States. Whiting adopted this pedagogy for her own classes, and so established the second undergraduate physics laboratory in the United States, after MIT.<ref name=":0" />

Pickering also invited Whiting to observe some of the new techniques being applied to astronomy, such as [[spectroscopy]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hentschel |first=Klaus |date=1999-10-01 |title=The Culture of Visual Representations in Spectroscopic Education and Laboratory Instruction |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s000160050023 |journal=Physics in Perspective |language=en |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=282–327 |doi=10.1007/s000160050023 |issn=1422-6944}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hentschel |first=Klaus |title=Mapping the spectrum: techniques of visual representation in research and teaching |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-850953-0 |location=Oxford; New York}}</ref> In 1880, Whiting started teaching a course of practical astronomy at Wellesley.

In February 1896, only a few weeks after the public announcement of the discovery of [[x-ray]]s, Whiting conducted x-ray experiments with her students and other physics professors.<ref name=":0" /> She was among the first in the United States and likely the first woman to successfully replicate [[Wilhelm Röntgen|Wilhelm Röntgen's]] x-rays.<ref name=":0" /> Her original glass plates were not able to be recovered, however, fifteen photographs printed from them were retrieved from a campus building slated for demolition. They provide a glimpse into Whiting's work.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cameron |first=John S. |last2=Musacchio |first2=Jacqueline Marie |date=2020-08-01 |title=Sarah Frances Whiting and the “photography of the invisible” |url=https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/73/8/26/856809/Sarah-Frances-Whiting-and-the-photography-of-the |journal=Physics Today |volume=73 |issue=8 |pages=26–32 |doi=10.1063/PT.3.4545 |issn=0031-9228}}</ref> As told by biographer and former student [[Annie Jump Cannon]], 
<blockquote>
An especially exciting moment came when the Boston morning papers reported the discovery of the Rontgen or X-rays in 1895. The advanced students in physics of those days will always remember the zeal with which Miss Whiting immediately set up an old [[Crookes tube]] and the delight when she actually obtained some of the first photographs taken in this country of coins within a purse and bones within the flesh.<ref>Annie J. Cannon (1927). "Sarah Frances Whiting." Science, Nov. 4, 1927, pp. 417-418.</ref></blockquote>In addition to Cannon, Whiting was also assisted or attended in the X-ray experiments by [[Mabel Augusta Chase]] and Grace Evangeline Davis.<ref name=":0" /> In these experiments, they played with the variables in the established set up to improve image quality and learn how x-rays could penetrate different materials.<ref name=":0" /> [[File:Whitin observatory 1935Legenda.png|alt=black and white image of a white building topped by two closed telescope domes|thumb|The Whitin Observatory, as depicted in the 1935 issue of ''The Legenda'', the Wellesley College yearbook.]]
Between 1896 and 1900, Whiting helped Wellesley College trustee [[Sarah Elizabeth Whitin]] to establish the [[Whitin Observatory]], of which Whiting became the first director.

During her time at Wellesley, Whiting kept up to date on scientific developments and shared the knowledge with her students.<ref name=":0" /> She met with [[Thomas Edison]] and learned of his incandescent bulbs.<ref name=":0" /> She then gave a demonstration at Wellesley of these bulbs to the board of trustees in the hopes of getting them to invest in the new technology.<ref name=":0" /> Additionally, she traveled and attended classes at universities all over the world and connected with scientists.<ref name=":0" /> 

[[Tufts College]] bestowed an honorary doctorate on Whiting in 1905.

Sarah Whiting was also known for supporting [[prohibition]].

Whiting retired from her position as a professor of physics at Wellesley in 1912, but remained as Director of the Whitin Observatory until 1916. She held the title of Professor Emeritus until her death in 1927 in [[Wilbraham, Massachusetts]]. She is buried in [[Machpelah Cemetery (Le Roy, New York)|Machpelah Cemetery]] in [[Le Roy (village), New York|Le Roy, New York]], near her now-defunct alma mater, [[Ingham University]].