Women’s History Month

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • March 3, 2014

Yes!! It is Women’s History Month for the ENTIRE month of March. I encourage you to learn one fact about an important woman in your community. Here is one for you – did you know that the first American born female to receive a medical degree was born and raised on Nantucket? Her name: Lydia Folger Fowler (1822 – 1879) and she specialized in gynecology and working with women and children. Just four years younger than Maria Mitchell, I am sure they knew one another, possibly went to school with one another, and Lydia may have even attended William Mitchell’s school, but that is just a guess as we have no records from his private school.



For the past eight months or so, I have been writing for “Nantucket Chronicle,” an online magazine – http://www.nantucketchronicle.com/soundings/nantucket-nation-nantucket. My column is called “The Nation of Nantucket” and there you will find several articles on island women called “Daring Daughters.” Take a look.


JNLF

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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
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