Anna Estelle
Glancy

BIO:

Anna Estelle Glancy is known as the “First Lady of Optics” because of her contribution to eyewear lens design. She was born in 1883 in Massachusetts and earned her BA in astronomy at Wellesley College in 1905. She went on to do post-graduate work at UC Berkeley, becoming in 1913—along with her friend and classmate Phoebe Waterman—one of the first two women to receive a PhD in astronomy from UC, and among the first in the nation.  She was the first woman to conduct her own observational research at UC’s Lick Observatory, east of San Jose. There, for over a span of three months, she made an exquisite series of photographs recording the changes of Comet Morehouse during its 1908 apparition.

Glancy’s PhD advisor, Armin Leuschner, called her “brilliant, industrious, and accurate.” Nonetheless, after completing her PhD she was unable to find work as an astronomer in the United States due to sexism. She and Waterman did succeed in finding jobs at the Argentine National Observatory. She remained there for four years but, was not given responsibilities commensurate with her education and abilities, and returned to New England in 1917, just as the U.S. entered World War I.

Still unable to find a position in astronomy in the U.S., Glancy decided to bring her considerable mathematical abilities—honed by her experience in celestial mechanics—to the field of optical design. She joined the staff of the American Optical Company in Southbridge, Massachusetts as a geometric research optician where she designed lenses for the military. She proved to be very talented at the complex calculations necessary in ophthalmic optics and remained with the company for the rest of her career. Her boss, Dr. E.D. Tilyer, a former astronomer, was well known as a leading lens designer, but it was Glancy who spent nearly a decade performing the calculations for a highly innovative optic now known as the Tilyer lens, her work remaining largely unrecognized, as the lens does not bear her name.

But Glancy’s contributions to ophthalmic optics were important and many. She was awarded a patent in 1923 for her design of the first progressive lens for eyeglasses—now in wide use. She received thirteen additional patents for her innovations between 1929-1945. Her passion for astronomy never faded, as she continued to write astronomy papers with her advisor Armin Leuschner. Though she was not able to work in astronomy, she made her mark in another field. As of 1950 she was the sole woman lens designer in the world.

Womanhood is a public art and digital media project that promotes the historical contributions of women to Santa Clara County. https://womanhoodproject.org/ 

Womanhood is supported by the County of Santa Clara Office of Women’s Policy.