My Book Signing At Mitchell’s Book Corner

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 21, 2015

Well, after not showing my face on Main Street for the Daffodil parade since I was probably a child, I will be there – well, indoors at least.


I am pleased to announce that Mitchell’s Book Corner has asked me to do a book signing on Saturday, April 25th from 10-11AM for my book Daring Daughters of Nantucket Island: How Island Women from the Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Centuries Lived a Life Contrary to Other American Women . Being an alum of Mitchell’s (or a “book nymph” as a few of us referred to ourselves under the “Book Goddess” Mimi Beman), makes it extra special for me having assisted numerous island and world famous authors with their book signings. Working at Mitchell’s was my first fulltime, year-round job when I graduated from college. And it was a great learning experience. Mimi hired me based on my “connection” to the Mitchell family –having worked, by that time, at the Maria Mitchell Association for about a decade (I started volunteering at the Mitchell House about 1986 or so). It did add to the confusion – I once answered the phone at MBC by saying, “Mitchell House.” Thankfully, it was Mimi on the line – can you believe? A little dismayed but then she started to laugh heartily.


So stop by and say hello and support your local independent bookstore!


JNLF

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10mo 1, 1847. {October 1, 1847} This evening at half past ten Maria discovered a telescopic comet five degrees above Polaris. Persuaded that no nebulae could occupy that position unnoticed it scarcely needed the evidence of motion to give it the character of a comet. From the journals of William Mitchell, father of Maria. One hundred and seventy-nine years later! JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 21, 2026
Sept. 24, 1881. . . . Mr. I. {van Ingen} thinks that not a person on the Board of Trustees would approve of the clause in Mr. Vassar’s will which objected to women as occupants of chairs. Just months before, Maria Mitchell had written a letter describing the controversy surrounding the bequest of Matthew Vassar to the college he founded. The large sum was separated out within his will, including the establishment of department chairs. The bequest for this action, however, did not allow for women professors to have a chair. Quite shocking for a women’s college but then, there were early trustees in the College’s founding who believed that women professors should not exist at Vassar! Maria would be the first professor Vassar hired – male OR female. JNLF
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