Gladys A. Harvey — Canada’s First Woman Radio Astronomer

By

Tim Robishaw, Heather Harvey, & Joseph Fletcher

National Research Council Canada Publication

Gladys A. Harvey (née Young, 1916-1995) was a staff member of the Radio and Electrical Engineering Division (REED) of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) from 1948 to 1976. Gladys received B.A. and M.A. degrees from McMaster University in the field of mathematics, and then received a teaching certificate from the Ontario College of Education.

After a number of years working in education, she applied for a position at NRC where in March 1948, despite having no radio, electronics, or engineering expertise, she was immediately hired into REED based on the strength of her mathematics background. 

This was a couple of years after Canada's first radio astronomer, NRC's Arthur E. Covington, made the first detection of radio emission from the Sun, and despite having no prior experience or interest in astronomy, Gladys was assigned to work with Covington to conduct astronomical observations of the Sun at NRC's Goth Hill Solar Radio Observatory. 

Gladys spent many years at the observatory assisting Covington with instrumentation and observations before beginning to coauthor publications on astrophysical measurements of the brightness of solar radio emission at a wavelength of 10.7 cm, especially bursts of radio emission that coincided with solar flares from the surface of the Sun. This led to a single-author paper on this topic in the Astrophysical Journal in January 1964. 

Throughout the 1970s, Gladys worked with the NRC's 46-meter radio telescope at the Algonquin Radio Observatory, and her scientific interest shifted from solar radio emission to the search for variable radio emission from distant galaxies. We present an overview of Gladys's career and her research highlights, and we rely on family photographs and a recovered audio interview with Gladys to provide insight into her experiences as the first woman working in radio astronomy at NRC.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Gladys Alberta Young was born in Aldershot, ON, on 25 Sep 1916 and attended Waterdown High School in Hamilton, ON (Class of 1934). At age 16, Gladys attended McMaster University where she was vice president of the Mathematics Club and in May 1937 earned a B.A. with Honours in Mathematics & Physics. Gladys continued her studies earning an M.A. in Mathematics in May 1938 with thesis work on the Jacobi Differential Equation. Gladys then earned a teaching certificate at Ontario College of Education and taught high school at Leamington, ON, for 2 years before working as an inspector of Bofors anti-aircraft cannons at a war plant. From 1945-1947, she taught veterans returning home from WWII. At this stage in her career, Gladys was encouraged to apply to the NRC, and as she reports, “They didn’t even look at me, they said ‘Come.’”

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (NRC) CAREER

Gladys Young began her career at NRC in March 1948. Despite having absolutely no previous interest or experience in electronics, radio, or astronomy, Gladys began as a Research Officer in the Radio and Electrical Engineering Division (REED), and was assigned to work with Canada’s first radio astronomer, Arthur E. Covington, at NRC’s Goth Hill Solar Radio Observatory in Ottawa, ON. She learned to drive a station wagon to get to the then remote observatory, and was given a tool kit and a pair of snowshoes so she could cross the observatory fields in the wintertime to maintain and operate the radio telescopes. Gladys married Garth Harvey (1921-2018) in 1952 and after 7 years of operating the Goth Hill radio telescopes, began co-authoring astrophysical research papers concerning her studies of radio bursts and flares from the Sun, and published a sole-author paper in the Astrophysical Journal in 1964.

Gladys worked at Goth Hill as part of the “Solar Patrol” for 20 years and then shifted her research work to NRC’s Algonquin Radio Observatory (ARO) at Lake Traverse, ON. While at ARO, Gladys began working with NRC colleagues John MacLeod and Bryan Andrew in studying variable radio emission from distant galaxies using NRC’s new 46-meter telescope. Gladys took early retirement in October 1976 and moved with Garth to Shawnigan Lake near Victoria, BC.

In 1991, Gladys and Garth were interviewed by York University professor of history, Richard A. Jarrell (1946-2013). By this time, Gladys was suffering memory loss from Alzheimer’s disease, but Garth was able to fill in many details about Gladys’s NRC career. From this interview:

• Garth explains that it would have been hard for Gladys to have had ambitions for climbing the ladder at NRC like her male colleagues because during the entirety of her career she had been appointed on an annual basis. Gladys didn’t receive a salary comparable to her male colleagues until the end of her career. Gladys claimed that this never really bothered her because, “I’ve always liked to do some things the way I wanted to. [And NRC let me do that.]”

• When asked if she had been aware of being the only woman in radio astronomy in Canada for much of her career and whether she considered herself a celebrity in any way, Gladys responded, “I never considered myself [a celebrity]… it was just something you did. When we went down for lunch, I was the only female with all the males. I was always accepted. No problem at all when I was there. And they gave me a birthday do, which I didn’t even expect, and the others were all men.”

Gladys A. Harvey passed away on 14 Jan 1995 at the age of 78.

Ed note:  Gladys, along with her husband, Garth were part of the founding group of the Shawnigan Lake Historical Society in 1977.  They were also editors of the local newspaper, “The Shawnigan Crier”.

GLADYS HARVEY’S ECCENTRIC LIFE

In 1982, Gladys told her hometown newspaper, The Cowichan News, that she and her husband, Garth, “don’t vegetate and we try to be as eccentric as we can.” Gladys certainly lived an unconventional life and was a true polymath. To a person, former NRC colleagues have reported that they were unaware of Gladys’s many extracurricular activities. Gladys:

• Studied music (piano) and bowled.

• Took flying lessons until the end of WWII.

• Shot with the National Defense Rifle Club.

• Was an amateur portrait painter.

• Studied with Group of Seven artist, A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974).

• Had an art exhibition at the Ottawa Baháʼí Centre.

• Acted in regional theatre (winning Best Supporting Actor).

• Wrote out a 2min 15sec solution to the Rubik’s Cube in 1984.

• Took a drafting course so she could draw the plans for the family home outside of Ottawa, ON.

  

PUBLICATIONS OF GLADYS A. HARVEY

1.     Covington, A.E., Medd, W.J., Harvey, G.A., & Broten, N.W. 1955, "Radio Brightness Distribution of the Sun at a Wave-length of 10.7 centimetres, June 30, 1954", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 49, 235

2.     Covington, A.E. & Harvey, G.A. 1958, "Impulsive and Long-Enduring Sudden Enhancements of Solar Radio Emission at 10-cm. Wave-length", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 52, 161

3.     Covington, A.E. & Harvey, G.A. 1959, "Resolving Power of Three Antenna Patterns Derived from the Same Aperture", Canadian Journal of Physics, 37, 1216

4.     Covington, A.E. & Harvey, G.A. 1960, "The Visibility of the 10-cm Radio-Emissive Region and its Application in Finding the 10-cm Quiet Sun", The Astrophysical Journal, 132, 435

5.     Covington, A.E., Harvey, G.A., & McNarry, L.R. 1961, "The Solar Noise Burst of November 12, 1960", Canadian Journal of Physics, 39, 635

6.     Covington, A.E. & Harvey, G.A. 1961, "10.7-cm Solar Noise Burst of November 20, 1960", Physical Review Letters, 6, 51-52

7.     Covington, A.E. & Harvey, G.A. 1961, "Coincidence of the Explosive Phase of Solar Flares with 10.7-cm. Solar Noise Bursts", Nature, 192, 152-153

8.     Covington, A.E., Harvey, G.A., & Dodson, H.W. 1962, "Selected High-Resolution Strip Scans of the 10.7-cm Sun", The Astrophysical Journal, 135, 531

9.     Swarup, G., Kakinuma, T., Covington, A.E., Harvey, G.A., Mullaly, R.F., & Rome, J. 1963, "Spectrum of the Slowly Varying Component of Solar Radio Emission", The Astronomical Journal, 68, 80

10.  Swarup, G., Kakinuma, T., Covington, A.E., Harvey, G.A., Mullaly, R.F., & Rome, J. 1963, "High-Resolution Studies of Ten Solar Active Regions at Wavelengths of 3-21 cm", The Astrophysical Journal, 137, 1251

11.  Harvey, G.A. 1964, "Some Relationships Between 10.7-centimeter Solar Noise Bursts, Flares, and Short-Wave Fadeouts", The Astrophysical Journal, 139, 16

12.  Harvey, G.A. 1965, "2800 Megacycle per Second Radiation Associated with Type II and Type IV Solar Radio Bursts and the Relation with Other Phenomena", Journal of Geophysical Research, 70, 2961-2976

13.  Harvey, G.A., & Bell, B. 1968, “Some Additional Aspects of the Unequal Activity of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: Microwave Radio Bursts and SWFs”, Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics, 10, 197-208

14.  McNarry, L.R. & Harvey, G.A. 1969, "The Measurement of Complete Polarization Characteristics of Solar Radio Emission", Bull. Radio Electr. Eng. Div, 19, 35-47

15.  McNarry, L.R. & Harvey, G.A. 1969, "An Experiment to Observe Linear Polarization of Solar Radio Bursts", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 63, 96

16.  Harvey, G.A. & McNarry, L.R. 1970, "The Polarization of Solar Radio Emission at 74 MHz: May 18-26, 1967", Solar Physics, 11, 467-496

17.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Medd, W.J. 1971, "OJ 287: An Exceptionally Active Variable Source", Astrophysical Letters, 9, 151

18.  Medd, W.J., Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Locke, J.L. 1972, "Observations of Extragalactic Variable Sources at 2.8 and 4.5 cm Wavelength", Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 77, 109

19.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Medd, W.J. 1972, "OJ 287: An Exceptionally Active Variable Source", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 66, 65

20.  MacLeod, J.M., Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Medd, W.J. 1972, "A Search at 2.8 cm for Rapid Variations in Radio Sources", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 4, 207

21.  Medd, W.J., Locke, J.L., Harvey, G.A., & Andrew, B.H. 1972, "Characteristics of Radio Variables at 2.8 and 4.5 cm", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 4, 207

22.  Andrew, B.H., Medd, W.J., Harvey, G.A., & Locke, J.L. 1972, "Variability of Radio Sources and Spectral Type", Nature, 236, 445-447

23.  Harvey, G.A., Andrew, B.H., Macleod, J.M., & Medd, W.K. 1972, "A Search for Rapidly Varying Radio Sources", Astrophysical Letters, 11, 147

24.  Medd, W.J., Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Locke, J.L. 1973, "Observations of Extragalactic Variable Sources at 2.8 and 4.5 cm Wavelength", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 163, 437

25.  Kinman, J.D., Wardle, J.F.C., Conklin, E.K., Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., MacLeod, J.M., & Medd, W.J. 1974, "Coordinated Observations of OJ 287 at Radio and Optical Wavelengths", The Astronomical Journal, 79, 349-357

26.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., Medd, W.J., Hackney, K.R., Hackney, R.L., Scott, R.L., Smith, A.G., Leacock, R.J., McGimsey, B.Q., Epstein, E.E., Montgomery, J.W., Mottmann, J., & Pomphrey, R.B. 1974, "BL Lacertae (VRO 42.22.01): Simultaneous Radio and Optical Observations", The Astrophysical Journal, 191, 51-54

27.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & MacLeod, J.M. 1975, "Further Observations of BL Lac at

2.8 cm", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 7, 420

28.  Craine, E.R., Strittmatter, P.A., Tapia, S., Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., Gearhert, M.R., & Kraus, J.D. 1976, "OX-192: A New Highly Variable BL Lacertae Object", Astrophysical Letters, 17, 123

29.  MacLeod, J.M., Andrew, B.H., & Harvey, G.A. 1976, "Variability of AO 0235+164 at Radio, Optical, and Infrared Wavelengths", Nature, 260, 751-752

30.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Briggs, F.H. 1977, "Rotational Variations in the Radio Brightness of Mars", The Astrophysical Journal, 213, L131-L134

31.  Andrew, B.H., Harvey, G.A., & Briggs, F.H. 1978, "Erratum: "Rotational Variations in the Radio Brightness of Mars" [Astrophys. J., Lett., Vol. 213, L131 - L134 (1977)]", The Astrophysical Journal, 220, L61

32.  Andrew, B.H., MacLeod, J.M., Harvey, G.A., & Medd, W.J. 1978, "A Ten-Year Study of

Extragalactic Variable Sources at centimeter Wavelengths", The Astronomical Journal, 83, 863-899