Eliza Madelina Wilbur Souvielle (October 21, 1851 – March 31, 1930) was an American scientist,

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

, botanist, inventor, author and

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

.3 amazing alarming or transforming scientists from Jacksonville
May 20, 2013 Metro Jacksonville

Education, academia and publishing

She studied at Batavia Female Seminary in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and may have been the first female to lecture in science at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. She was a member of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

and her work was published in magazines and newspapers including ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' and the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

''. She published ''Continuity (magazine)''.

Personal life

Wilbur was the third wife of Thomas Basnett and moved to

Marabanong Marabanong is a historic mansion in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It was built in 1876 on the site of Perley Place, the antebellum mansion purchased in 1870 by British astronomer Thomas Basnett that was originally built by Thomas Perley ...

(a historic mansion in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

) in 1880. She invented a large astronomical telescope there. (In 1914, the house was sold to Eliza's cousin, Grace Wilbur Trout.) After Basnett's death in 1886, she married Mathieu Souvielle, a throat and lung surgeon.

Pseudonymous writing

She wrote ''Sequel to the Parliament of Religion'' about non-Western religions under the pseudonym Eban Malcolm Sutcliffe and ''The Ulyssiad'' (Dacosta Publishing Co. of Jacksonville, 1896), a biography of

Ulysses Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War ...

in verse.

Other interests

She was active in the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

campaign, served as secretary for the Home for the Aged in Jacksonville for seven years, and was vice president of the Jacksonville Branch of the League of American Pen Women.Empire Point mansion has long history of strong Trout women
by Leni Bessette and Louise Stanton Warren October 8, 2005 Florida Times-Union Her patents included three for

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

s. She was also involved in efforts to engineer an airplane.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilbur, Eliza 1851 births 1930 deaths American women astronomers 19th-century American women inventors 19th-century American inventors 20th-century American inventors 20th-century American women inventors