Paper, Please!!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 7, 2014

I think I have said this before, perhaps many times before, so I apologize but I think it needs to be repeated every so often (though this is a completely different piece of writing). I fear for the historians, curators, archivists, researchers, and other who come after us. Our devotion to email, the Internet, and text messaging is leaving a vacuum of documents. There is no paper. There is no paper trail. There is no information found in a file, a letter, or a journal for those in the future to learn about us and what we do, choices made, our thoughts. We still have books – though people do not treasure or respect them as they should. But very few still write letters or keep journals.

I rely on paper for my research into the Mitchell family, Nantucket history, Nantucket women . . . I rely on paper – letters, receipts, bills, 1933 specifications for the MMA’s Science Library. This particular information has allowed me to determine how the building was built, even the original color of the stucco as we move through the conservation process of the exterior of our Library building as it becomes an ecology lab/classroom and natural science collections storage space. To me, it’s not just fascinating “Stuff” to read, it is paper I learn from, words that inform me, words that help me learn, information that I pass onto others so that we may all learn, learn from mistakes, learn from discoveries made but forgotten but that are more relevant today than ever before. From paper, I have learned how the concrete roof frame of the Library Wing is attached to the walls – something the structural engineer needs for the conservation work. From paper, I see notes in the margins; see notes written on envelopes; see ephemera stuck between pages of books; and a small bloom from a rare plant found at Quidnet in 1922 that was pressed between the pages of a plant book, noting where on island it was found, when it bloomed, and how it had never been found anywhere else on island before. This information can be used by scientists – not just MMA’s but others from on and off-island.

If so much of our conversation is by text or email, what will those of the future know of us? Will they consider us to have gone backwards? Will they know why you made a decision if it was only in an email, never printed, and their future computers cannot read any computer data from 200 years before? CDs don’t last forever – and technology changes rapidly no matter the “safeguards” technology seems to think it puts in place so that we can access old computer data.

So this here is a plea for more paper – try and keep a journal, record the weather, write some letters. Because if it wasn’t for paper, I wouldn’t know what Maria thought of her travels through Europe with Nathaniel Hawthorne and neither would you and William Mitchell’s important weather data would not be available for climatologists to use for predicting hurricanes and other storms

JNLF

Recent Posts

Miss Herschel

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 10, 2025
A re-blog from years past. The item you see here is a small piece of what once was. Upon her visit to Europe as a young woman’s chaperone in 1857 –1858, Maria Mitchell visited many of the major observatories of Europe and met many of the movers and shakers in the scientific, art, and literary worlds of the continent. While Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) and her brother, Sir William (1738 – 1822), were long dead, Maria was able to meet Caroline’s nephew (William’s son), Sir John Herschel (1792 – 1871). All three were astronomers, though Caroline found herself having to give credit – or have her brother accept credit – for much of her work because she was a woman. She has often been credited with the being the first woman to discover a comet. She was likely not – and the other woman who was the first lost credit through history as she had to “give” her comet discovery to her husband. See a pattern? Caroline was just one of many women in a long line of, “She couldn’t possibly do that – she is a woman!” As Maria once said, “But a woman, what more could you ask to be?” But back to this small item. It was a page from one of Caroline Herschel’s notebook’s, torn from its home by John Herschel to serve a s a memento for Maria of her visit to the family’s home. Maria was a bit shocked but . . . she took it! Over the years, the paper tore and ripped and just crumbled away until Maria finally decided that to save it, she needed to past it into one of her own journals. And thus, we have what we have. I assume Caroline’s notations refer to her brother William – “Wol” and Woll.” It could be an “I” but it really looks like an “O.” She is considered the world’s first professional woman astronomer – she would be compensated for her work after some time – and she warrants a greater look at – too much for a blog. So I encourage you to go take a look at her. Maria would want you to! JNLF

From The Rear

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 3, 2025
I am not so sure our founders would love that title but the image is of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO) “from the rear.” I love this image as it is really the only one we have – unless you count the one that is taken from farther away and from further into the backyard of the Mitchell House. That one allows you to see the natural slope of the Mitchell House back lawn which would be altered when they added the Curator’s Cottage. Both of the images were taken before the Curator’s Cottage was added at the back of the Mitchell House in the early 1930s – and this one you see here was taken before 1922 when they added the Astronomical Study onto the MMO. It also shows the original dome – which was copper – before it was replaced in 1951 – which is the current dome. The copper did not hold up to our climate here – salt spray, damp, fog. But the new one, shipped over from England, has held up well. The current dome was donated by Margaret Underwood Davis (MMA board president at the time), in memory of her son, Cushing Davis who was an amateur astronomer. Margaret Davis served as president from 1930-1946 and again from 1949-1953. The image tells you some other things too. For instance, the grape arbor behind the Mitchell House is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell’s (Maria’s uncle) grape vine – I have blogged about it several times before – and you can see it in this image. You can also see how the Milk Room connects to the 1850s kitchen. The 1850s kitchen was added by Peleg Mitchell Jr and it’s the first little wart you see with the white pipe attached. The next wart is the Milk Room – also added by Peleg – it’s the one with the shutters on the window. Both still exist it’s just the Curator’s Cottage was attached in the 1930s. You will see another chimney too. It appears alongside the white pipe. That is likely the original chimney to what is now the Astronomer’s Cottage at the MMA. We acquired the Cottage in the 1920s but I believe all of the additions, and the removal of the chimney, were done before we were given it.  Fun! JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: November 2025

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