astronomy

Asa Mercer

Asa Mercer is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Asa Mercer rather than just read about it. In short: Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 – August 10, 1917) was the first president of the Territorial University of Washington and a member of the Washington State Senate. He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old American West: the founding of the University of Washington, the Mercer Girls, and the Johnson County War.

Key takeaways

Asa Mercer belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Asa Mercer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Asa Mercer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 – August 10, 1917) was the first president of the Territorial University of Washington and a member of the Washington State Senate. He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old American West: the founding of the University of Washington, the Mercer Girls, and the Johnson County War. Mercer Island in Lake Washington and Mercer Street in Seattle are named not for Asa, but rather his brother Thomas. Seattle Public Schools operates Asa Mercer International Middle School in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Early life Mercer was born in Princeton, Illinois. He had twelve older siblings. According to Mercer, he spent time with Abraham Lincoln in his childhood and claimed that Lincoln encouraged him to travel. Mercer's first trip west was in 1852 at age thirteen. In 1860, he attended Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio, returning to Washington on his graduation.

The University of Washington In 1861, as a member of one of the founding families of Seattle, Washington, a young Asa Mercer assisted his brothers in clearing stumps to make way for the new territorial university. Besides helping with the foundations of the university, Mercer, being the only college graduate in town, was hired by Daniel Bagley as the university's sole instructor and president. However, Mercer did not receive a salary.

The Mercer Girls

The young town of Seattle was attracting hordes of men to work in the timber and fishing industries, but few marriageable women were willing to make the trip to the remote northwest corner of the United States. In March 1864, with public support and private funding, Mercer traveled to the eastern United States in search of single women to work in Seattle as teachers. On May 16, 1864, he returned to Seattle with eleven women who all found employment as teachers in Seattle. Of these, eight eventually married and settled in the area. This and a subsequent trip introduced dozens of women to the Pacific Northwest, most of whom eventually married local men. The descendants of the Mercer Girls still represent a significant portion of Seattle's citizenry. The Mercer Girls story formed the basis of the television show Here Come the Brides. Mercer himself married one of the Mercer Girls.

Astoria, Oregon Soon after his marriage, Mercer moved to Oregon where he worked for the federal government in Astoria as a special deputy collector for the customs service. His employment ended in 1867 when he was suspected of being involved in alcohol smuggling, although charges against him were dismissed when key witnesses went missing. During their time in Oregon, the Mercers purchased three hundred lots in Astoria. Although the real estate endeavor was not lucrative for Mercer, his descendants sold the Astoria properties in 1970 for a substantial sum.

The Johnson County War

Mercer became well known throughout the West as a publisher and eventually found his way to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he co-founded the Northwestern Livestock Journal (1883-1892), a weekly newspaper which served as a public relations vehicle for the moneyed cattle interests. As Mercer came to see the clearly underhanded treatment of individual ranchers by the cartels, he began to write more scathing accounts of the events that were unfolding on the open range. After the Johnson County War, Mercer switched sides and recounted the invasion in the week's columns on October 12, 1892, just three weeks before elections. Denounced as the author if not the instigator of the plan, his account was told in his book The Banditti of the Plains (1894), which was suppressed in its day and is still difficult to find in public libraries in some parts of the Western U.S. Following the events of the Johnson County War, his newspaper office was torched by arsonists and the book's entire second edition was hijacked enroute from Denver. Mercer settled into the quiet life of a rancher in Hyattville, Wyoming.

Personal life Mercer married Annie Elizabeth Stephens, a 26-year-old Irish-Catholic from Baltimore, on July 15, 1866. They had two daughters and six sons; three of their children died in infancy and another as a teenager. Annie Mercer died on October 16, 1900. Asa Mercer died on August 10, 1917, from dysentery.

References

External links Minor, David. "Handbook of Texas Online: Mercer, Asa Shinn". Retrieved 2008-06-07.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Asa Mercer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Asa Mercer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Asa Mercer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Asa Mercer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Asa Mercer

In research: Asa Mercer appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Asa Mercer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Asa Mercer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1839 births, 1917 deaths, 19th-century American legislators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Asa Mercer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Asa Mercer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Asa Mercer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Asa Mercer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Asa Mercer in simple terms?

Why does Asa Mercer matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Asa Mercer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Asa Mercer.