Name Angeline Stickney Died July 3, 1892 | Children Percival Hall | |
Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall (November 1, 1830 – July 3, 1892) was an American suffragist, abolitionist, and mathematician, and the wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. She did not use her first name and so was known as Angeline Stickney Hall.
Angeline was born to Theophilus Stickney and Electa Cook.
Though poor, Angeline Stickney was able to attend Central College in McGraw, New York with help from her sister Ruth and by teaching at the college. She majored in science and mathematics, doing coursework in calculus and mathematical astronomy. Central College was a progressive school where students of modest means, including women and free African Americans, could earn a college degree. It was here that she became passionate about the causes of women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery.
Angeline Stickney and Asaph Hall met at Central College. Stickney was two years ahead of Hall. She was his instructor in geometry and German. During their days together as teacher and student, Hall and his classmates would devise questions and problems that they were convinced Stickney could not solve, yet she never failed to solve them.
Stickney and Hall married in Elkhorn, Wisconsin on March 31, 1856. Immediately after the wedding, the couple moved to Ann Arbor so that Hall could continue his education. Three months later, they moved to Shalersville, Ohio.
She encouraged him to continue his search for satellites of Mars when he was ready to give up, and he successfully discovered Phobos and Deimos.
The largest crater on Phobos, Stickney crater, is named after her.
Hall home-schooled all four of her children and all attended Harvard University. Her third son, Angelo Hall, a Unitarian minister, wrote her biography. Her oldest son, Asaph Hall, Jr., was born on October 6, 1859 and served as director of the Detroit Observatory from 1892 to 1905. Other sons were named Samuel (second son) and Percival (fourth son); Percival Hall (1872–1953) was the second president of Gallaudet University from 1910 to 1946 (he himself was not deaf).
She died at North Andover, Massachusetts at age 61.