Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • Mar 12, 2018

March {1857} I found from Nantucket to Chicago more attention than I desired. I had a short seat in one of the cars, through the night. I did not think it large enough for two, and so coiled myself up and went to sleep. There were men standing all around. Once one of them came along and said something about there being room for him on my seat. Another man said, “she’s asleep, don’t disturb her.” I was too selfish to offer the other half of a short seat, and too tired to reason about the man’s being, possibly, more tired than I. . . .One peculiarity in travelling from East to West is, that you lose the old men . . .


My first image is Maria, bonnet on, long skirts and high-top shoes and petticoats and slips beneath with her legs tucked up under her on this train car seat. That’s what I do on the steamship! In my jeans, coat, comfortable sweater, sneakers . . .But the image doesn’t work for a woman of the nineteenth century. Though she is later offered a window seat so that she can prop herself up to sleep which makes me think she really was reclining to some degree. Perhaps the men in the car didn’t think it appropriate! It was not for the time – but I could see Maria not caring because she wanted to be comfortable and, “Darn It!,” she was tired!


I close with her comment about old men – think about all those books you have read about the “wild west” and the likely not accurate movies, not many old men, for several reasons.


JNLF

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Vestal Street Updates

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • 08 Apr, 2024
Vestal Street has seen a bevy of activity of late. In January, we began the renovation of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory’s (MMO) Seminar Room addition – as it has been referred to since it was built in 1987. When it was created, the point was for it to serve as meeting, lecture, work space on three floors for the Astronomy Department – in particular the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (NSF REU) interns we have each summer, visiting astronomers, and the astronomy staff. Believe it or not, it was the first time the Observatory had a bathroom! And, it connected to what we refer to as the Astronomer’s Cottage (ca. 1830 and purchased for the MMA in 1922) so that staff could move between the house and the Observatory without going outside – convenient! With a gift from board member and Mitchell family descendant, Richard Wolfe, we have been able to renovate this space, bringing it up to date and adding HVAC, an accessible bathroom and kitchenette, three office spaces, a seminar/meeting area, and space for intern workspaces. Lighting and interiors are being improved as this is written and we hope to have the space ready by June 1, 2024. A special thank you goes to John Wise, another Board member, who has been working with the MMA to make sure this renovation happens in a short timeframe. The work here dovetails nicely with the conservation of the historic observatory to which the Seminar Room is connected. The historic MMO, built in 1908 with a 1922 addition, has seen exterior conservation work over the last several years with support from the Community Preservation Act and the M. S. Worthington Foundation. This fall, we will move inside with more grant funding which will allow us to conserve the historic interiors and install a proper HVAC system to protect the historic fabric and historic astronomical equipment and papers. We will restore the floor in the Astronomical Study from 1922 – it’s hidden under wall-to-wall carpet and 1950s tile but it’s still there – and allow us to conserved the historic plaster and all of the original varnished woodwork. Stay tuned on this project. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: April 2024

01 Apr, 2024
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

Tumbledown Fence

01 Apr, 2024
To me, Nantucket was always tumbledown fences. Covered in lichens, worn with wind and salt spray – grooved even – and a deep grey. Pieces broken, swinging in the wind as this broken one was with the 50mph gusts. Held together by vines – ivy or rambling climber vines, or honeysuckle. You do not see as many nowadays. This one is in town along a lane – possibly older than the house it wraps around as there was once a much older house there in the 1950s/1960s. Taken down to make room for this one – in a not so kosher manner – but that’s a story for another day. The lichens and mosses that grow on them, the vines that cover them, provide food and shade and coverage for a myriad of life – from the tiniest insects to small birds hiding from red-tailed hawks or even people and cats. Architecturally they speak of our past. While this one is very simple and not as old as others, it hearkens to a time in which cars were fewer, the island was quieter, and life was simpler. A fix was one picket not a whole fence. And some of the much. much older fences make me think of Maria Mitchell and her day when there were a lot of fences too – but not to keep people out or to create a “privacy screen.” They were there to keep animals in the yard – and more often to keep wandering animals OUT of the yard. JNLF
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