Keep Calm and Bird On: About Our Collections

Ginger Andrews • April 1, 2021
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.”
-Edith Andrews

It’s human nature to collect things. The urge for a trophy, totem or souvenir, in actual or symbolic form, goes deep in every culture from the dawn of human history. But it also has a dark side. Starting in the 15th century, Europeans plundered the New World. Before photography, a specimen was the only proof a thing existed.


The development of western science in the 17th century only improved the excuses. By the 19th century, Natural History collections were all the rage. Nantucket whalemen brought back many “curiosities” for the Atheneum when Maria Mitchell was librarian.

But collections are truly important to science. They were part of the nascent Maria Mitchell Association from its founding. Plant and bird specimens which had been previously collected were early gifts. Properly preserved, a specimen reduces or eliminates the need for more killing.


With Edith Andrews, the ornithology collection was vastly expanded by salvaging birds found dead from window strikes or caught by cats. Herbarium, insect, mammal and fish specimens also grew.

The collections now include over 7,000 plant, 800 algae, 1,200 bird, 90 mammal, 150 fish, 26 reptile,10 amphibian, and over 1,600 insect specimens.


These are not just dusty relics. Since dawning environmental awareness in the 20th century, older collections have become increasingly useful to ecologists.



With new technologies such as DNA and stable isotope analysis, they represent a window into the past, a basis for comparison. It is as if they are books in a library of life we are just learning how to read. Researchers use our collections along with others. This Big-data availability far outshines anything even the largest museum could do on its own. As the collections are digitized, and are more widely available, they become ever more useful and important.

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger July 7, 2025
July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF
July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
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
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