Dr. April Beisaw to Speak as Featured Guest for the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Science Speaker Series

Kelly Bernatzky • July 12, 2021

On July 21 at 7pm, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) is hosting a live lecture presented by Dr. April Beisaw. Her talk, “Taking Their Water for Our City: Archaeology of New York City’s Watershed Communities” is part of our FREE Science Speaker Series and will be held via Zoom.


The New York Times regularly runs articles explaining why New York City has “the champagne” of city tap waters -- it comes from pure and rural mountains. However, there is nothing natural about NYC’s water. To create the water system, thousands of people lost homes and businesses, and had to sue the City for compensation. To maintain the water system, those living around reservoirs are encouraged to sell their lands, creating landscapes of abandonment where only the wealthy can remain. Over the last nine years, Beisaw and her Vassar College students have hiked portions of the city-owned watershed to document the ruins of lives cut short by a distant City. In what was left behind, researchers can begin to estimate the price that rural people paid for providing clean water to City residents. Mapping of the land takings has also revealed patterns to the destruction, such as the loss of many woman-owned lands and businesses that once thrived along the Ulster & Delaware Railroad.



Dr. April M. Beisaw is an associate professor of Anthropology at Vassar College in New York’s Hudson River Valley. She began studying the New York City water system upon arriving at Vassar in 2012. As an archaeologist, Dr. Beisaw seeks out the material remains of past peoples whose stories have been forgotten or gone untold. As an avid hiker, she prefers to explore the woods off-trail. Her water research has been published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology and in the edited volume Contemporary Archaeology and the City Creativity, Ruination, and Political Action (McAtackney and Ryzewski - Oxford Press). Dr. Beisaw’s other publications include Identifying and Interpreting Animal Bones: A Manual (Texas A&M Press) and The Archaeology of Institutional Life (University of Alabama Press).

 

To register for this event, please follow the link below:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R7w3uXizSvyv_sUyhO7zXg

 

For the full Science Speaker Series schedule, please visit our website here:

https://www.mariamitchell.org/science-speaker-series

 

This series is generously presented by our lead sponsor, Bank of America, and additional sponsors, Cape Air, Cisco Brewers, and White Elephant Resorts.

 

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 8 2021

Contact: Kelly Bernatzky, Development Associate

kbernatzky@mariamitchell.org

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The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF

Putting Things By

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
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