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

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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 9, 2025
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