Mitchell House is Open!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 24, 2013

We have had a busy opening first two weeks here at Mitchell House. After a week of training, the Mitchell House’s new summer intern, Sarah Scott − a 2012 graduate of Vassar College − is leading tours of the House, working on planning our summer Junior Historian classes for children aged 7-10, and learning the finer points of “keeping” a historic house museum. Soon, she will be assisting me with cleaning and moving the Special Collection books and working on some small research projects related to the Mitchells. We had a large number of visitors during our first week and on Saturday, I led a women’s walking tour concerning Maria Mitchell and other famous Nantucket women.

Additionally, as co-sponsors of author Amy Brill with the Nantucket Book Festival (NBF), MMA was a part of some of the activities for the NBF including the opening reception and talk, as well as the opening dinner and of course the breakfast at the Dreamland Theater where Amy read from and spoke about her debut novel The Movement of Stars inspired by the life of Maria Mitchell. Amy also spent some time at MMA speaking more about her book and meeting some of our members as we opened up the Mitchell House and the Vestal Street Observatory for invited guests.



Amy continues on her travels promoting her book – an exhausting thing to do especially when she leaves her husband and two young daughters behind for much of it – although they were able to come along to Nantucket for the weekend! But leaving them at home likely has given Amy a better understanding of what Quaker women went through when they left their young families behind to spread the word of the Quaker faith throughout America and even sometimes abroad for many months or even years at a time.


If you have not had a chance to read Amy’s novel, please do. Amy is sure to have more novels for us to read in the future. Thank you, Amy, for your time and for being so inspired by Maria Mitchell and this tiny little island that had such a far reaching influence many generations ago.

For further inspiration, please come by Mitchell House for a tour or sign a child or yourself up for one of our history/historic preservation classes! Become inspired by Maria Mitchell and the Mitchell family as Amy did. You never know what that inspiration may become!


JNLF

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Sept. 24, 1881. . . . Mr. I. {van Ingen} thinks that not a person on the Board of Trustees would approve of the clause in Mr. Vassar’s will which objected to women as occupants of chairs. Just months before, Maria Mitchell had written a letter describing the controversy surrounding the bequest of Matthew Vassar to the college he founded. The large sum was separated out within his will, including the establishment of department chairs. The bequest for this action, however, did not allow for women professors to have a chair. Quite shocking for a women’s college but then, there were early trustees in the College’s founding who believed that women professors should not exist at Vassar! Maria would be the first professor Vassar hired – male OR female. JNLF

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Do you know what these Mitchell House Junior Historians are doing? It is a good old-fashioned round of hoop rolling. And, they had a lot of fun learning how to use them down at the Coffin School one day. Hoop rolling or hoop trundling were popular from very early on and well into the twentieth century. By early on I mean Ancient Greece even. It’s on ancient pottery and was not limited to children! Native Americans, ancient Rome, 16 th century England – it’s been known by different names, taken various formats, played by various ages, and played through various ages. In the nineteenth century, both boys and girls did hoop rolling – and it was likely seen as a more “ladylike” active game that girls could play. I’m assuming that is likely the reason why several women’s colleges still have I tradition of rolling hoops. We use these sometimes in the summer during our weeklong Mitchell House children’s program – Junior Historians. Do not be too surprised if you see me out on the lawn on Vestal Street practicing on warm days this fall, winter, and spring! Got to get up to speed! JNLF

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