The Hussey family collection divides between the papers of William Joseph Hussey and his wife Ethel Fountain Hussey. The William Joseph Hussey papers includes correspondence, papers relating to his astronomical work, travels abroad, and affairs at the universities where Hussey held appointments, particularly The University of Michigan. Of interest are two letterpress books, two University of Michigan student notebooks containing notes on John William Langley's course in physics and notes on mathematics, account books, scrapbooks, and diaries of Argentina and South Africa travels and activities in The University of Michigan Observatory.
The papers of Ethel Fountain Hussey include correspondence, diaries, manuscript drafts of articles, and subject files relating to her organizational activities, her early work with the Michigan League and with the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Some of the couple's correspondents included James B. Angell, Levi L. Barbour, Luther Burbank, Marion L. Burton, William W. Campbell, William L. Clements, Ralph H. Curtiss, David Starr Jordan, Robert P. Lamont.
William Joseph Hussey was born on August 10, 1862 near Mendon, Mercer Co., Ohio. He was a graduate of the University of Michigan College of Engineering, class of 1889. That same year, he was appointed instructor of mathematics and astronomy. From 1892 to 1896, Hussey was professor at Stanford University, then from 1896 to 1905, he was astronomer in the Lick Observatory at the University of California. He returned to the University of Michigan in 1905 as professor of astronomy and director of the Detroit Observatory. From 1911 to 1917, he was also director of the Observatory and professor of geodesy in the Argentine National University of La Plata. He died on October 28, 1926 in London, England.
Ethel Fountain Hussey was born in Sebetha, KS on December 20, 1865. Her parents were Major Orlando Fountain and Jennie Shepperd Fountain. In 1891, Ethel Fountain Hussey graduated from the University of Michigan, where she met William J. Hussey. The couple had two children, Roland and Allis. Ethel Fountain Hussey was active in Ann Arbor and University of Michigan organizations and activities, most notably the Woman's League, of which she was first president, and the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. In 1905 she publised two articles: "Chasing the Hidden Sun" in the April issue of The Sunset magazine (published by the Southern Pacific Company in San Francisco) and "The Eclipse of the Sun in Egypt" in the November 2 issue of The Independent, (published in New York). Ethel Fountain Hussey died in Ann Arbor on September 28, 1915 of breast cancer. In 1928, one of the Michigan League rooms was named in her honor the Ethel Fountain Hussey Room.
