Wilhelmina Fleming. Portrait of Wilhelmina (or Williamina) Fleming (1857-1911), Scottish-American astronomer. Fleming was originally a household maid of Edward Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, and worked part-time there before becoming a permanent member in 1881. She was placed in charge of the classification of stars according to their photographed stellar spectra, and developed a useful classification scheme. This work was eventually published as the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra (1890). She also discovered 10 novae and 222 variable stars.