Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 7, 2021

December 3rd. {1857} No Frenchman or woman makes way for you in the street, it is not their business, you must move away from the loaf of bread on the man’s head, a yard or two long, or it will hit yours as it passes . . .


I have, locked in my head, an image of Maria being knocked in the head from behind, her bonnet shoved over the front of her forehead and her grabbing it to keep it from falling off her head, despite the ties under her chin. And then looking around her in shock trying to figure out what just happened and then seeing a man with a long loaf of French bread on his head. She doesn’t laugh – she becomes, maybe not irate, but incensed at the lack of care or observation on the part of the French bread carrier.  It’s not that this happened but Maria figured it out quickly – that it could. As she notes, it could, since in her opinion the carriers don’t move over – though a Parisian might know otherwise from a tourist from Nantucket!


JNLF 

Recent Posts

The Evil Four Inches

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

Keep Calm and Bird On: May 2025

May 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

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