Celebrate Maria Mitchell’s 203rd Birthday with the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association

Kelly Bernatzky • July 25, 2021

August 1, 2021 marks the 203rd birthday of Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer. In 2020, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) was unfortunately forced to cancel her birthday open house that the MMA has been hosting since we opened our doors to the public on 1903.

 

While there is a light at the end of the tunnel with restrictions being lifted, this year the MMA felt it was safest delay our large in-person open house celebration another year. Typically, Maria Mitchell’s Birthday Open House sees an average of 300 people at out sites on Vestal Street with music, birthday refreshments, free museum visits, and all sorts of activities and displays for children, families, and adults.

 

This year, to mark her birthday, the MMA has devised several activities (with prizes!) designed to allow Maria’s birthday festivities to go on while maintaining social distancing and other public safety measures: a historical family scavenger hunt, a photo contest, and a drawing contest!

 

The family scavenger hunt will bring participants on a tour of some of the places where Maria lived, worked, or made new discoveries. Beginning on Monday, July 26th, participants will be able to pick up a scavenger hunt from the brochure box on Vestal Street across from the Research Center, from one of our open properties, or download it directly from the website here:

 

Participants can drop off their completed scavenger hunt sheets in the box outside the Vestal Street Observatory between Monday, July 26th and noon on Saturday, August 14th. On Monday, August 16th, the MMA will randomly select a completed and correct form and the winner will receive a 2022 MMA Family Membership! Scavenger hunts are a great activity to bring your family together and allows all ages to take part. And, it’s something that was very popular in the nineteenth century though back then it was more along the line of letterboxing and orienteering and no 21st century technology!

 

Another way to celebrate Maria’s birthday this year is to participate in our photo contest! One of the MMA’s core missions is to create opportunities for all to develop a life-long passion for science through education, research, and first-hand exploration of the sky, land, and sea of Nantucket Island. In keeping with this mission, the theme of the photo contest is Natural Nantucket. Photos of anything and everything natural and/or native to Nantucket – natural resources, landscapes, flora, fauna, sky, land, sea – are welcome. Though most famous as an astronomer, Maria Mitchell was also a naturalist with profound interest in Nantucket’s flora and fauna. Through this photo contest, participants can reflect on what Maria Mitchell and the Maria Mitchell Association means to them.

 

This contest will have a division for teens (ages 13-18) and adults (ages 18+). One winner will be selected from each division. Winners will have their work featured on our social media and receive a 2022 MMA Family Membership along with one of our popular new MMA hats! Entries may be posted using the Google form found on our website from Monday, July 26, 2021, through Saturday, August 14, 2021. The winners of each division will be announced and prizes will be distributed on Monday, August 16, 2021. To learn more about the rules of the contest or make an entry, please visit our website:

https://www.mariamitchell.org/maria-mitchells-birthday

 

Lastly, for the youngest members of the family, the MMA will be hosting a drawing contest for children under 12. Similar to the photo contest, the theme of this contest is Natural Nantucket. The MMA invites participants to create hand-drawn or digital artwork inspired by the stars/the sky, any natural feature, landscape, flora, or fauna occurring on Nantucket, and submit their artwork using the Google form on our website.

 

This contest will have a division for children ages 7 and under, and children ages 8-12. Entries may be submitted Monday, July 26, 2021, through Saturday, August 14, 2021 and the winners of each division will be announced and prizes will be distributed on Monday, August 16, 2021. Winners will have their work featured on our social media and receive a Maria Mitchell Association gift bag, including a 2022 MMA Family Membership and items from our gift shop! For more information or to make an entry, please visit our website:

https://www.mariamitchell.org/maria-mitchells-birthday

 

The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

For Immediate Release

July 23 2021

Contact: Kelly Bernatzky, Development Associate

kbernatzky@mariamitchell.org

Recent Posts

The Ancient Vine

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 27, 2025
This is what our landscaper for MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House this is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Lily of the Valley

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
Show More