Reysa Bernson, the unconventional head of the first French planetarium

The first modern planetarium was presented in 1923 in Jena, Germany. Verysoon in the subsequent years, planetariums were installed in other parts ofEurope as well as in America. France, however, got its first planetarium onlyin 1937, for the World Exhibition organized in Paris. The team that took careof that planetarium was headed by a female amateur astronomer named ReysaBernson. This choice might seem surprising, but it was not made at random,thanks to her never-ending astronomical activities at that time. This paperaims to bring back memories of this very active amateur astronomer of the 1920sand 1930s, and show the many ways in which astronomy was disseminated a centuryago.