Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 10, 2014

1872. Nov. 4. Sorosis.


Lunch was at noon, but it was noon neither mean nor apparent {a reference to mean solar time and apparent solar time} but a Sorosis noon.


Some 100 guests arrayed themselves around tables or around the walls of the room. Mrs. Wiler presided at the central table with Miss Faithfull on her right and jenny June Croty on her left. AT the same table were Dr. Emily Blackwell, Dr. Mary Putnam and Mrs. Bullan of the Revolution . . . . A question for discussion then came up whether most good would be exerted by Sorosis if it had a special aim or aimed only at a general expression of views . . . .


Maria Mitchell was one of the founding members of SOROSIS, a woman’s group that formed in 1869 in response to female journalists being barred from a press conference and dinner held for Charles Dickens on his first trip to the United States. In response, women reporters, authors, educators, doctors, and scientists and others came together at Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City, forming Sorosis where women could discuss topics of the day and further the educational and social activities of its women members and other women so that all could be helped. It was the first professional women’s club in the US. Sorosis would expand to have smaller groups around the country, including here on Nantucket, and island born women such as Anna Gardner and the Reverend Phebe Hanaford were members. Maria’s humor is readily apparent – note her beginning lines – obviously Sorosis meetings and luncheons did not start on time.


JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 5, 2025
I have posted this during Women’s History Month before but because it is March and Women’s History Month, I think it’s worth repeating. It’s clever and helps to tell an important story in women’s history while giving it a bit of a 21 st century twist. It comes via the National Women’s History Project .  JNLF
May 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger April 28, 2025
Lynn, Ap. 25 1869  My dear President, I am not sure I told you how long I must be away from the College. If I took only the Sunday’s rest, it would be possible for me to reach the Obs. By Tuesday, but I feel the need of more than one day of quiet, before I enter upon the new and incomprehensible life before me . . . William Mitchell died on April 19, 1869 and for the first time, Maria Mitchell was alone. Save for her trip to the southern United States and Europe in 1857 and 1858, her father was always by her side. She did not know much of a day in her life without him nearby and she knows that. It was difficult for her – and her siblings worried about her and this new world she was now in. She had been – expect for that trip – the caregiver for both of her parents. Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, died in 1861 on Nantucket and Maria had cared for her as well. She was the child who became the caregiver of the family – both in her youth as her siblings sought her out for care, humor, love, and adventures while their mother was busy with younger children and household duties – and then her parents as the only child who did not marry and remained by their sides. JNLF
Show More