Nobel Prize for a “Computer” named Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921)

The purpose of this short paper is to summarize the contents of a poster paper given by the author at the 2004 AAS annual meeting in Denver. The first objective of that poster paper was to disclose the content of letters by Professor Mittag, of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and by Dr. Harlow Shapley, the director of the Harvard College Observatory. To the knowledge of the author none of these letters were published before. The second objective of the poster paper was to suggest that the importance of Henrietta Leavitt’s discovery, the period-luminosity relation, has not been fully recognized by the public or fully appreciated by the astronomical community. Detailed description of the life and works of Henrietta Leavitt and the difficult conditions under which she, like most women of her time, had to work are topics of future publication.