National Collaborative of Women’s History

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 15, 2013

For quite a few years now, the Mitchell House has been a member of the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (NCWHS). The NCWHS’s mission is to support and promote “the preservation and interpretation of sites and locales that bear witness to women’s participation in American life. The Collaborative makes women’s contributions to history visible so that all women’s experiences and potential are fully valued.”

Other members of NCWHS includes the Alice Paul Institute, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Clara Barton National Historic Site, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Pearl S. Buck Historic House and Site, and the National Women’s History Project to name a few. A guide book to the various member sites was published a few years ago and the NCWHS just featured the Mitchell House on its homepage this month. Take a look at the feature – www.ncwhs.org – and also take some time to learn more about this wonderful collaborative effort on behalf of women’s history sites – because all historical sites have women’s history! – because this week marks the anniversary of the first women’s right conference at Seneca Falls.

JNLF

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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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