"Although banquets at professional meetings (like the chemists' "misogynists' dinner" of 1880) had long excluded women, the ban began to seem a little less intimidating around 1900, when several women scientists began in their own quiet way to challenge some of these age-old restrictions. Thus, for example, Mary Whitney of Vassar College, who had attended the founding meeting of the American Astronomical Society at in Wisconsin in 1899 with her protégée and successor, , was still not sure whether they would be welcome at the society's banquet in Washington, D.C., in 1902. President noticed her unease and wrote to assure her that they were indeed expected to attend ... Newcomb's encouragement induced these women to go, and thereby set a precedent for later meetings."