On Their Shoulders: Grace Brown Gardner, 1880 – 1973

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • March 29, 2021

March is Women’s History Month. While we perpetuate and promote the legacy of Maria Mitchell, our namesake, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association has been built upon the shoulders of some incredible women. I hope to continue to highlight them as I continue with this blog. Grace Brown Gardner, who I have mentioned before, is one of those women.


Grace Brown Gardner, educated in Nantucket public schools, earned a bachelor’s degree in botany from Cornell University and a master’s degree from Brown University. She taught first in the ’Sconset School, and then in New Bedford, Fall River, and at Framingham Normal School before returning to the island in 1942 after approximately forty years of teaching. She was an active member and a member of the boards of the Maria Mitchell Association, the Nantucket Atheneum, and the Nantucket Historical Association.


Grace Brown Gardner is renowned for her compilation of scrapbooks chronicling island life, history, and people – a lifelong occupation that began in her father’s newspaper office – and for her love of the island’s natural history. Today, the fifty-two scrapbooks are an important resource for anyone doing Nantucket research; they are housed in the Nantucket Historical Association’s Research Library. Other of her books and some ephemera are located at the Maria Mitchell Association’s Archives and Special Collections. Natural science specimens that she collected for the MMA reside in the MMA’s natural science collections in the Herbarium collection. This collection pre-dates the founding of the MMA in 1902 and is an important resource for MMA scientists, as well as Nantucket and off-island scientists. It is an extensive collection of dried, pressed plants which notes the locations and dates of their collections. It can also be used for sampling and for recreating the strain/variety of the plant – especially if it is endangered. I can open a folder with say, a sample of solidago (sorry, I picked a “boring” one, and find where it was picked from. I can go back to that site and see if it still exists there. That’s sort of a mundane example but I think it makes the point.


Gardner lived in her family home at 33 Milk Street – once known as the Big Shop – and the building that played host to the second anti-slavery meeting on Nantucket. It still exists today as a year-round home.


JNLF

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NANTUCKET, MA— —The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) announces that it will host its new Director of Astronomy, Jackie Mlingo, PhD., as a featured presenter for its October Science Speaker Series. The presentation will take place on Wednesday, October 15 at 7pm in person at the MMA Research Center, 2 Vestal Street, and via Zoom. The event is FREE to all. Have you ever noticed the dark spots that sometimes appear on the Sun’s surface? These “sunspots” are just one example of star spots—mysterious patches that appear on stars across the galaxy. Far from being simple blemishes, star spots reveal the powerful magnetic forces at work inside stars, forces that also drive solar storms and shape the space weather that can impact entire planetary systems. In this talk, Dr. Milingo will share her research on star spots and how she uses them as a window into teaching undergraduates the process of scientific discovery. She will also explore how science can reach far beyond the classroom—bringing STEM into everyday spaces and sparking curiosity across communities, from kindergartners to lifelong learners. Dr. Jackie Milingo is an observational astronomer who earned B.S. degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Oklahoma. Her research is currently focused on understanding magnetic activity cycles in sun-like stars through long-term studies of starpots. Dr. Milingo joins the MMA after a year-long AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship at the U.S. National Science Foundation, where she was a Fellow in the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, as well as the Astronomy Division in the Math and Physical Sciences Directorate. Before her fellowship, she was a professor in the Physics Department at Gettysburg College for over twenty years where her work included mentoring undergraduate research students. Dr. Milingo joined the staff of the MMA in early September after a year-long, worldwide search for a new astronomer. She becomes the eighth MMA Astronomer and Director of the Astronomy Department of the MMA since Margaret Harwood, the MMA’s first astronomer, served from 1916 to 1957. Dr. Milingo has spent her career committed to generating transformative experiential learning opportunities, contributing to public education and outreach, removing barriers for students, and changing the conversation and learning spaces in astronomy, physics, and STEM in general. This event will be held both in person and via Zoom. Pre-registration is required to attend either option. To register for the free, in-person event, use the registration link below: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/October-Science-Speaker-Series--Dr-Jackie-Milingo To register for the free, Zoom option, use the registration link below: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5q4kXF2rRHi8iWbFPkLN5w The Science Speaker Series is generously sponsored by the Maria Mitchell Association’s lead sponsor, Bank of America The Maria Mitchell Association was founded in 1902 to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. After she discovered a comet in 1847, Mitchell’s international fame led to many achievements and awards, including an appointment as the first professor of astronomy at Vassar College. Maria Mitchell believed in “learning by doing” and today that philosophy is reflected in the MMA’s mission statement, programs, research projects, and other activities. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages. ###

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 29, 2025
Sept. 25, 1854. . . . The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not.  I think of two things when I read this. One is that Quakers believed in being industrious and not wasting time. The second point makes me think immediately of Holden Caulfield – The Catcher in the Rye if you don’t know that character’s name – and his various references and discussions to “phonys” as he refers to them though Maria’s mention here is not entirely in the same vain. A materially successful Quaker was one who was living “in the light,” as Quakers referred to it. Even if gifted with material wealth, Quakers still lived frugally and were a hard working group of people. As Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur noted, “Idleness is the most heinous sin that can be committed in Nantucket . . . for idleness is considered as another word for want and hunger.” If you were not productive and industrious, you would starve – and it would affect others in the community since isolated Nantucket acted as a corporate family economy – everyone was relying on one another for survival. While Maria is also not necessarily going to this depth of industrious it is a Quaker ethic that was strongly imbued in her. She certainly was a hard worked with numerous accomplishments to her name and many different projects completed even by 1854 at age thirty-six. And don’t forget October 1 st is the anniversary of Maria’s comet discovery – October 1, 1847. JNLF
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