#scots american

[scotianostra]

On May 15th 1857 Williamina Fleming was born in Dundee.

Born as Williamina Paton Stevens, Dundee to a reasonably affluent family: her father ran a gilding and picture framing business. Sadly he died when she was just 7 and she was sent away to a good local school until she was 14.

She worked for a while as a student teacher in Dundee, eventually marrying James Fleming, a local accountant. Within a year they emigrated to Boston USA. Things quickly began to go wrong starting with him leaving her without warning. Shortly after she discovered she was pregnant. She was forced to find employment and secured a job as a maid – the choice of employer was to change her life.

Professor Pickering was a demanding employer and as the story goes, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the work from his male employees- to the extent that he claimed- ‘even my maid could do a better job’. It appears he really did believe this as he initially employed Williamina as an administrative assistant and then, impressed by her work, moved her on to analysing astronomical data- at which she excelled.

By her mid-twenties Williamina was one of a number of women Pickering employed to work at his observatory. They became known as the Harvard Computer – or Human Computers. Pickering taught the women to analyse spectral data and encouraged them to learn and study.

Williamina went on to manage this group and develop, alongside Pickering, a new star classification system, known as the Pickering-Fleming System. She classified over 10,000 stars; their work being published in 1890 when she was 33 years old.

She worked tirelessly, examining over 200,000 photographic plates and in the course of her work discovered many novae (including Pickering’s Triangle- see my article on this beautiful object), she analysed many variable stars, discovered tens of unusual Wolf-Rayet stars and worked on the discovery of double stars. By 1889 she was a curator at the Observatory, the first woman to hold such a post. However, much of her early work was published under Pickering’s name- it was only later that her name appeared as co-author.

Williamina hired many women over her time running the group, with a number going on to become great astronomers themselves.

Despite her position and status, Williamina received the same salary as that of a junior male new-starter. This was a source of great frustration and hardship as she tried to give her son a good education.

Williamina was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Astronomical Society in London and received numerous awards and recognition throughout her career.

[oifaaa]

Would you rather be british or french

Haven't I answered this before? French the foods nicer the weather's better and it's still apart of the eu

[garpen]

YALLER

Yaller...

"Yaller need therapy once he's done with you."

I'm sorry. I have nothing to say for myself 😔

Yaller= yall will = you all will

I'm not even country or anything this is just gen how I speak. I try spelling out what comes through my head but sometimes I forget and just like spell/sound out what words sound like to me lol

A more accurate spelling would have been "Y'all'll" ? (ew the apostrophes make it look ugly) but the way I say it out loud sounds more like "yaller"

You all should be thankful you can't hear the way I speak it's honestly an atrocity

[vagueconfusion]

just found my mom didn't know that people in Britain speak English and it sent me into hysterics

[bantarleton]

Poignant images of the recent re-burial of 14 Revolutionary War bodies discovered at Camden, including one redcoat highlander. Members of the present-day Royal Regiment of Scotland were in attendance along with the reenactors. Research is currently being conducted to find any living relatives of the deceased. Images from the 71st Regiment of Foot Facebook page.

[insomniacfoxu]

my mom literally just told me that the first thing she asked my piece of shit father when she found out he was cheating

"oh ye found some wee sheep ta fuck now arentye"

[leadendeath]

Read your tags in Demoman's voice

UR NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO GUESS I SPEAK SCOTS!!!!!!

[ebenelephant]

reclaiming my national roots by saying 'yous' instead of 'y'all' because i'm not a cowboy that's just the spirit of american entertainment speaking through me

[kemetic-dreams]

By the 1760s the English, both at home and in colonial America, were applying the term to Scots-Irish settlers of the southern backcountry, as in this passage from a letter to the earl of Dartmouth: “I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.” The word then came to be associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.

Among African Americans cracker became a contemptuous term for a white southerner; among some southern whites it has become a label of ethnic and regional pride, boosted by the election of south Georgian Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976. This led to the coining of the word crackertude as a not entirely serious answer to negritude.

[algrenion]

you know youre in love with a cis man when you start showing genuine interest in his favourite sports

[britneyshakespeare]

Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off and me I also feel not so good

[scotianostra]

'I only went out for a walk'

The words of John Muir, but also me!

Dunbar today, birthplace of Muir, it's a shame he is more celebrated in the USA, but I suppose that's where he made his name.

[rainingincale]

Nah cause tell me why i saw a random car in my neighbourhood with a tr*mp 2024 bumper sticker 😭😭😭 are you not embarrassed!!!

[yorktaylor]

society if my family hadn't come to america from ireland during the revolution and instead came in the 40s like most irish americans so i could get citizenship

[loki-zen]

trying not to think about how the domination of an increasingly internet-based and therefore undifferentiated anglosphere media surely incentivises presenting whatever view of a certain nation’s politics will play best in America, and if the country is Anglosphere itself this will in turn actually affect the politics there bc of how media Does That

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I would absoloutely LOVE to read a story of yours based around brigid showing up in America on a coffin ship. As someone from Ireland, a lot of people don't actually know the history and it makes my heart so so big hearing it even mentioned :')

I don't know if I'll ever do the coffin ships specifically but I have a lot of thoughts about Brighid and the diaspora in America and Australia especially but also Canada, Argentina and Chile. One of the handful of times I've heard Irish Gaelic in public it was from an Argentinian, it was glorious. Sorry, braincells playing pingpong today uhhh where was I oh! Yes. So if you kind of scratch that surface of American consumerism and the whole phenomenon of plastic paddies and yanks ordering car bombs in pubs you might be surprised! There's a real appreciation for the history and culture and music under there, I swear. I'm not Irish-American but I was born in Boston and we're the worst about this, I swear to god, but there is a really rich vein of history and appreciation in there somewhere.

Anyway, all of that to say I will likely write a story about if not the coffin ships themselves, then at least some of Brighid's life and relationships that resulted from the circumstances. Coffin ships, fever sheds, the Irish Brigade, the Fenian raids, the music, the food, the holiday, the legacy of the Celtic Church in the Catholic church of America and Australia. There's a lot of material in there.