Where Was The Maria Mitchell Association In 1918?

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 27, 2020

As a historian and curator, I am often thinking about the past and how it affects the present day, how it affects different situations, and the similarities. I also like to look at how people react to the same or similar situations in different eras. The Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic situation is no different for me.


I peruse our old MMA annual reports quite often for various bits of information whether it be from a standpoint of something that happened at the MMA, perhaps work that was done on the buildings or information about staff members of many years ago. While I have been around for quite a bit of time (thirty years plus), I was not obviously around in the 1920s or 1940s (even though I may seem of a different era to some) and thus need to take a look back. The annual reports are always a good place to start before I head into the Archives.


I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at our annual reports of the early 1900s and through the 1930s because of the more recent work we have done on our Science Library – now our Research Center re-opened in 2018 – and the conservation and restoration work that we are hoping to complete to the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory with several grants. So, I took a walk back to 1918 because I do not remember reading much about the “Spanish Flu Pandemic” of 1918-1919. On Nantucket, the 1918 Pandemic was prevalent – most notably during the “second wave” in the Fall of 1918. I only found one mention of the 1918 Pandemic in the annual reports and that was in our first astronomer’s, Margaret Harwood, report on the Observatory. In it, she mentions having to cancel the open nights in November 1918 due to the flu on Nantucket. That’s it. No other mention. The Boston-area was hard hit during this “second wave” – with a belief that Fort Devens was one of the major places to see the resurgence in the Fall of 1918 as soldiers came from across the country on their way to and from Europe.


Miss Harwood did focus on the war in her reports of the time – she had taken quite a bit of time off to assist the Red Cross and other entities in the efforts to support the troops. Of note, in articles that I have read about this period, the war did continue to – obviously – take center-stage keeping the flu pandemic relegated to interior pages of the newspapers. Most of the people who survived the flu pandemic – my great grandfather, a pharmacist, caught it and survived – are gone and if they are still with us today they were infants or young toddlers. One woman who recently passed away at 102 years old, survived the Pandemic of 1918 only to lose her life to the current Pandemic. What was curious – I’m not even sure what word to use – is that she lost her infant twin in the 1918 Pandemic. Both lost to a flu pandemic – but 102 years apart.


I guess my point here is that we as an island, a country, a world, have been through quite a bit to put it mildly – both then and now. The MMA survived through the pandemic of 1918-1919, the Great War, the stock market crash in 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, and World War II among many other catastrophic and world-altering events. The MMA moved and renovated William Mitchell’s former schoolhouse into the MMA Science Library in 1918 and 1919 and added a Wing to the Science Library in the midst of the Great Depression. My friend and mentor and the MMA’s former Ornithologist, Edith Folger Andrews, stepped in as the biology teacher for Nantucket high school students when their science teacher was drafted in World War II. The MMA made it through other uncertain times and stock market recessions and lows, including the Great Recession of 2008. After this, no one will be untouched, our world will be different, but we will all still be here – including here at the MMA where we will continue to be to help you learn more about the world around you – from land to sea to sky.


Wash your hands. Cover your mouth and nose. Be well. Stay safe. Stay at home unless you are an essential worker.


JNLF

Recent Posts

A Swatch of Fabric

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 9, 2025
Another re-blog. I came across this recently while looking through my computer files. I want to re-blog it in memory of Jean Hughes, an incredibly gifted islander, who was directly influential in the lives of so many island children and those in need. She was the Coffin School Trustee’s President for many years and I had the honor to serve as a trustee under her. She passed away in the summer of 2025. Jeanie loaned me this from her family collections as she thought I would enjoy it. She knew me better than I thought she did. With love. 1830s Chinese silk to be exact. It literally floated into my lap as I sat reading a letter.  A letter from a young Nantucket girl to her grandparents. A young girl who just several years before had moved from tiny Nantucket Island to San Francisco with her mother to join her father. He had moved for better work and a better life. Nantucket was in an economic decline. Reading this treasure trove of letters – loaned to me by a friend who is a descendant of these people I mention – was like spying on them. Now, when I read Mitchell family letters and writing it is slightly different for me. Having worked in the Mitchell House for so long, I feel like they are a part of my family. This batch of letters was different however. I felt like they know I read their letters – as if they were looking over my shoulder or sitting on the other side of the room aghast. I felt like they thought no one ever would – or at the very least an outsider – read this correspondence. The worse letter one was the son writing to his mother upon receipt of her letter telling him of his father’s death. That was hard. Made harder because he thought his father was fine – he was as of the last letter a month or two before. Made harder as I lost my own Father a little over a year ago. I knew how he felt – but cannot imagine receiving a letter that is about a month old telling one of such horrible news. He had not seen his father in several years. I could speak to my Father, visited him monthly, and was there with him. That was not an easy letter to read. The silk fabric piece is quite beautiful – and still pristine – as if it was just folded into the letter yesterday. She wanted to share with her grandparents the dress that her cousin had brought to her directly from Hong Kong. A cousin, who was likely pregnant – or “sick” as was written but it was obvious what “sick” meant (yes, pregnancy was looked at as an illness in a way – and there were high rates of infant and mother mortality during and immediately following birth). The cousin had travelled back and forth to Hong Kong on the China Trade with her husband it seems but due to the pregnancy had to be put off with family or others until the baby was born. This was a common practice for the wives of whale captains who might go to sea with their husbands. They were put off with other whaling families or missionaries in far off ports so that they could have their baby where others could help. Sometimes they were put off months in advance. And, did you know that Nantucket whale wives were the FIRST to go to sea with their captains husbands? They set the trend – after all, we were the whaling capital of the world. At least, until we lost that title for multiple reasons. I digress. The other piece that leads one to realize that money was to be had – at least for the cousin – is that she didn’t bring fabric – she brought the dress already made in Hong Kong. Yes, it would have been less costly there than in the United States but it shows there was extra money for spending. And, there was enough excess fabric inside the dress for this young girl to cut off a piece of it and send it to her grandparents. Making them feel as if they were a part of her daily life – and making her feel that way too. So far from home. On the other side of the continent with Nantucket Sound in the midst, to boot. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: December 2025

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

A Child’s Donation

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 1, 2025
A past blog that I forgot I had written when I came across the letter written about below. Once I realized I had already written a blog about it, I decided it was worth re-blogging. Over Christmas, a neighbor of my Mother’s gave her a copy of something she came across while cleaning things up in her house. She thought my Mother would enjoy it and by the same token, my Mother thought that I would. Her note with it stated it proved she was as, “old as dirt.” She isn’t old as dirt. Believe me. The letter she had copied was from the War Production Board and dated December 16, 1942. It was, “written at the request of President Roosevelt,” who wanted to thank this young girl for her donation of a rubber tire. This was not any old rubber tire you see. It was a pure rubber tire – very much needed for the war effort – from one of her toy airplanes and measured not more than half an inch or so in diameter. This young girl was distressed that everyone else, including in her family, was assisting in the war effort and that she wasn’t. So when she discovered the tire was rubber, she asked her mother to send it to Washington, DC. Which, obviously, her mother did do. What does this have to do with Maria Mitchell you wonder? Well, it makes me think of collections and saving things. You have your own collections and archives at home – your family papers and photographs, your books (aka special collection books). These are valuable to your family and its history. They help you see what and who came before you and how your family became a family. What they endured. How they got to where they did and how where they came from helped, in part, to get you to where you are today. And then, these papers and books are important for the larger community. We learn from our past and our collective past – and these items help us do that. Scores of researchers use Maria Mitchell’s papers and those of her family every year. Not everyone is doing research on the family – they can be doing research on astronomy or some science-related matter, someone whom Maria or her family knew. The possibilities are endless. So, from this little letter, I know a young girl in Connecticut contributed to the war effort and what she gave. I know that rubber (not that I didn’t already but you get the idea) was important to the war effort in some way. I also know that many people contributed to the war effort and this was just one simple way to do it. I know she had a toy that had rubber components. And as a young girl in 1942, she was playing with toy airplanes. And I know that the war effort was all consuming to the point that a small child wanted to make sure she found a way to help too while seeing her family members helping. Your paper is important. Always find a venue for these items if you no longer want them. They will help us to better understand our world – past and present. JNLF P.S. Remember that every donation, every gift to someone in need, matters. No matter how small it is – or you think it is.
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