This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was hosted by Janet Forest. It was co-hosted and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Production support by Shire Video. 

A special thanks to Executive Director of Nantucket Preservation Trust Mary Bergman for her time and insights.

Music by Tunetank, Dvir,  Melody Ayres-Griffiths and Medieval_Horizons from Pixabay.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. We would love for you to stop by and say hello. You can find us online at NantucketAtheneum.org or search @NantucketAtheneum on Facebook and Instagram.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was hosted by Janet Forest. It was co-hosted and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Production support by Shire Video. 

A special thanks to Executive Director of Nantucket Preservation Trust Mary Bergman for her time and insights.

Music by Tunetank, Dvir,  Melody Ayres-Griffiths and Medieval_Horizons from Pixabay.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. We would love for you to stop by and say hello. You can find us online at NantucketAtheneum.org or search @NantucketAtheneum on Facebook and Instagram.

CLICK HERE to watch this episode on our YOUTUBE Channel.

CLICK HERE to see the photos referred to in the show.

Other sources and references:

• NHA Website: Oldest House Page
  • Oldest House History (PDF) (rendering of twin gables on Pg. 4)
• Historic New England: Drawings of the Jethro Coffin house, Nantucket, Mass., by Alfred Shurrocks
• Jethro Coffin House – Forman
• Houses Cited
  • The “Old Workhouse” Finchingfield, Essex, Eng. Ca 1600 also illustrated in Cummings, 1979
  • The Tristam Coffin House, 14 High Rd., Newbury MA (1678)
  • Sherburne House (c. 1695-1703) Strawbery Banke
  • Captain John Whipple House (1677/1690), Ipswich MA 

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was hosted by Janet Forest. It was co-hosted and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Production support by Shire Video. 

A special thanks to Phoebe Botticelli-Pohl and Thomas Perich at the Nantucket Historical Association.

Music by Tunetank, Dvir and Medieval_Horizons from Pixabay.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. We would love for you to stop by and say hello. You can find us online at NantucketAtheneum.org or search @NantucketAtheneum on Facebook and Instagram.

If you want to learn more about the connection between whalers and Silicon Valley, we recommend the book VC: An American History by Tom Nicholas.

CLICK HERE for more sources and more information.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was hosted by Janet Forest. It was co-hosted and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Production support by Shire Video. The Nantucket Whaler was voiced by Reference Library Associate James Grieder

A special thanks to Tech Founder and Nantucket High School Alum Fernando Young of Beluga Labs.

Music by Tunetank and Medieval_Horizons from Pixabay.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. We would love for you to stop by and say hello. You can find us online at NantucketAtheneum.org or search @NantucketAtheneum on facebook and Instagram.

In this season of the podcast, We look for examples of the Tiffany Paradox in Nantucket’s history. We invite special guests to share insights into each topic.

Were Nantucket whalers the original tech giants? 

What factors went into restoring the Oldest House as it is?

Who decides what gets preserved what gets forgotten?

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted by Janet Forest. It is co-hosted and researched by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Production support by Shire Video. Music by Tunetank from Pixabay

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. We would love for you to stop by and say hello. You can find us online at nantucketatheneum.org or search @NantucketAtheneum on facebook and Instagram.

You can find all the previous episodes of this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you are listening now. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend!

They are bringing it back for one night only on Thursday, July 17. CLICK HERE to sign up for a time slot.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, edited and hosted by Janet Forest. Thanks to Sammy Aguiar and Sierra Hurd for their time. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, edited and hosted by Janet Forest. Thanks to Pamela McGrady and Jim Borzilleri for their time. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES
If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• Special thanks to Kurt Gally, Alyssa Gouw, and the  team at the Monrovia California Public Library for their research assistance on this episode.
  
  
• The founding and growth of the Maria Mitchell Association is documented on the Association website.
  
  
• Florence Conable might have become re-acquainted with Capt. Arthur Fisher when he visited Nantucket in 1904.
  
  
•  Florence’s friendships and social activities on Nantucket blended into her life in Monrovia. For example, she likely met Capt. Richard and Caroline Swain when they visited Nantucket in 1912 (discussed in Episode 6). The following January, Florence hosted a Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A. R.) event in Monrovia where Caroline was one of the guests of honor and gave a talk about Japan. The other Guests of Honor were Mrs. Eleanor Williams Morgan, Regent of the Nantucket D.A.R. Chapter, and Helen  Parker Willard, wife of Henry K. Willard, the young man Florence first met at the Surfside Depot party in 1882 (discussed in Episode 11). 
  
  
• The Willards summered on Nantucket and wintered in Pasadena. They were close friends with Florence (while her Sconset cottage was being renovated in 1913, Florence stayed with the Willard’s at “Wesco”, their house on Orange St). Florence and the Willard’s were also members of the “Silver Grays”, an informal group that socialized and travelled together in Southern California.
  
  
• It’s also possible that during her stay with the Willards, Florence met Capt. Peter’s Hussey daughter, Phoebe Hussey Allen, whose family was renting a cottage just around the corner in Gorham’s Court. (Phoebe is the only one of Peter Hussey’s children known to have visited Nantucket).
  
  
• Florence may have later seen Richard and Caroline Swain during their extended visit to North America in 1921-22. If not on Nantucket that summer, then possibly in Monrovia when they passed through California on their way back to Asia.
  
  
• To put in perspective how much changed during the era we explored this season, consider this article from the June 14, 1930, I&M:
  
  “From California to Nantucket in Ninety-six Hours. Mrs. Morris Conable arrived in Nantucket, Wednesday evening, to spend the summer at her cottage in 'Sconset, and made the trip across the country from California to Nantucket in four days. She left there Saturday evening and in 96 hours was heading in over Nantucket bar. Fast train service and close connections at Chicago and Boston favored her in the journey.”
  
  Unimpressive today, but when Peter Hussey made his first voyage to the Pacific in 1847 at the start of our series, four months would have been a noteworthy time...

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• Sample questions for the 1878 Vassar College Entrance Examination were included in its Annual Catalog. (Florence Easton did particularly well on the Greek and Latin sections; how would you do?)
  
  
• Link to the Vassar College Digital Library
  • Photo of Main Building ca. 1860’s.
  • The Trigonometry Ceremony remained a tradition until the 1890s. Florence Easton’s Nantucket education prepared her for the material, something we will discuss in our next episode.
• Ella Gardner (‘77) and Florence Easton (‘82) were the only students from Nantucket listed as graduates of Vassar College in its early decades. However, eight other Nantucket women attended as Special or Preparatory students, and/or were enrolled but did not graduate:
  • Charlotte Puffer Baxter: Special, 1871-72
  • Phebe West Bunker: Special/College 1871-1873
  • Charlotte Eliza Coffin: College, 1869-70 
  • Francis Mitchell Macy: (Niece of Maria Mitchell), School of Art,1878-79.
  • Helen Marshall: College, 1872-73
  • Emma Louise Nickerson: Special, 1871-72
  • Annie Eliza Spencer: Preparatory,1874-75
  • Maria Mitchell Starbuck: Special, 1868-70
• Many other young woman would be added if we included those with Nantucket ancestry. Brooklyn-born Elizabeth Coffin graduated in 1870, and Florence’s classmate, Susan Coffin Coleman was from Cleveland.
  
  
• The drop in Nantucket attendees reflects both the island’s declining population and the establishment of competing women’s colleges.
  
  
• The scrapbooks of Florence Easton’s classmates, Jesse Wheeler and Anne Wyman, give a sense of their campus life.
  
  
• See the Show Notes for Episode 8 (The Daughters of the Samurai) for a discussion of Florence’s scrapbook of her Vassar years, which includes a photo of Sutematsu Yamakawa Oyama

© The Nantucket Atheneum - March 29, 2025 

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• Other prominent Nantucketer’s holding positions at the Michigan Central Railroad in the mid-1850’s included Charles B. Swain Esq., Agent of the Company’s Great Lakes steamers, and Frederick Hussey, (uncle of Capt. Peter Hussey), who was an accountant.

• The quoted letters written by Florence Easton Conable are part of the Archives and Special Collections Library at Vassar College. We will be discussing its other relevant holdings with Ronald Patkus, head of Special Collections at Vassar College, in our next episode.

• Edward Bellemy’s “Six to One” may be the first “rom com” set on Nantucket. We discussed it in our podcast from Season 2, The Shelves of Yore: Annals and Idyls from the 1900s, starting around 09:50 (but the prior discussions are also pretty interesting).

• The jaw-dropping scope of the development planned for Surfside is detailed in the “Plan of the Lands of the Nantucket Surfside Land co…. [1881]” (Courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association).

• For a general history of the Progressive Movement, see Michael McGerr’s, “A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920”. (2005) [available via CLAMS]. For a more detailed discussion of its impact on Southern California, see Kevin Starr’s “Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era” (2014). [Available via ComCat]

• Florence Easton Conable remained politically and socially active. (At age 82, she was reappointed to the Board of the Monrovia Public Library.) She died in California in her 90th year and was buried next to her late husband in Cortland, N.Y.

• “Inn and Out”, the cottage inherited by Florence Easton Conable was documented in “Architectural & Historical Report for 6 Center Street Siasconset…”. It was prepared by Marsha L. Fader, AIA Architect and Betsy Tyler, Historian for The ‘Sconset Trust, Inc.

• As we can see in this picture taken with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, (1868-1932) , Lafcadio Hearn was almost always photographed in profile. 
  
  
• The reference to one of Hearn’s translators as “Kakuzo’s brother” is to Yoshisaburo Kakuzo, sibling of Okakura Kakuzo, who we met in our discussion of William Bigelow. (While it’s unlikely they met in person, Bigelow and Hearn moved in the same circles.) 
  
  
• In November 1906, the same year he published “The Way of Tea”, and had joined the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at Bigelow’s request, Okakura Kakuzo wrote a letter to the New York Times defending Hearn and his writings, saying “….We may differ with his philosophy or quarrel with his deductions, but of all foreign authors he has reached nearest the heart of our people…” 
  
  
• Setsuko Koizumi published a loving memoir of her life with Lafcadio Hearn in 1918, filled with insights into his personality, their working process, and family life. 
  
  
• Hearn’s essay on Jiujutsu, was published as Chapter VII of “Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan” (1895). · TBH some of the variations bring the count down a bit, but a Keyword search in CLAMS on Oct 8, 2024, with “Lafcadio Hearn” yielded 100 items. 
  
  
• Watchers of Shogun would benefit from reading his essay, “A Conservative”, included in Hearn’s “Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life”
  
  
• Former Atheneum Staff Member Liz Kelly talked about Lafcadio Hearn in our virtual program "Treasures from the Vault" which can be found on our YouTube channel.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• Google Books has online versions of Edward Morse’s Japan Diaries: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
  
  
• Independent Researcher Hina Hirayama recently transcribed the original diaries for her paper The Self-Fashioning of E. S. Morse: A Comparison of Japan Day by Day and Its Primary Source . She demonstrates that Morse’s “…authorial voice sought to accommodate the historical, social, and personal changes that had occurred since his travels…”, and, like many travel documentaries today, marginalized his support network and travelling companions to create an aura of a lone adventurer in a strange land.
  
  
• The Lowell Institute where Dr. Morse gave his lecture on Japan is still active.
  
  
• While Dr. Morse may have encountered our three Nantucket Captain’s during his travels in Japan, he certainly would have met Capt. Peter Hussey when the latter returned to America in 1888 and settled in Salem Mass. 
  
  
• Besides traveling with Capt. Richard Swain on their voyage from Japan to China, Isabella Stewart and Jack Gardner then stayed with two grown daughters of Warren F. Delano Jr., one in Shanghai and the other in Hong Kong. Both had married partners in Delano’s old firm, Russell & Co. As he resided part of the year in Shanghai, it’s likely Capt. Swain knew them as well. 
  
  
• Woman were also swept into the “Muscular Christianity” movement. Seven years after Sutematsu Yamakawa graduated, Vassar College opened a new Gymnasium Building, which included a swimming pool. While its students were always required to take some form of daily exercise, the College gradually implemented programs that examined the health and physical abilities of incoming Freshwomen, created a personalized regimen and tracked their progress. It also expanded its sports and recreation offerings, and later added a “swimming requirement” to graduate. (Miss Yamakawa would have aced it). · Here is the link to the MFA BOSTON Japanese Collection. · James Grieder also wrote this article about William Sturgis Bigelow on Tuckernuck. 
  
  
• William Sturgis Bigelow also actively promoted Japanese scholars to positions in American institutions (particularly the MFA) and was a tireless advocate for the nation through his political connections. Christopher Benfey covers his efforts in detail. 

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• Google Books has online versions of Edward Morse’s Japan Diaries: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
  
  
• The Lowell Institute where Dr. Morse gave his lecture on Japan is still active.
  
  
• While Dr. Morse may have encountered our three Nantucket Captain’s during his travels in Japan, he certainly would have met Capt. Peter Hussey when the latter returned to America in 1888 and settled in Salem Mass.
  
  
• Besides travelling with Capt. Richard Swain on their voyage from Japan to China, Isabella Stewart and Jack Gardner then stayed with two grown daughters of Warren F. Delano Jr., one in Shanghai and the other in Hong Kong. Both had married partners in Delano’s old firm, Russell & Co. As he resided part of the year in Shanghai, it’s likely Capt. Swain knew them as well.
  
  
• Here is the link to the MFA BOSTON Japanese Collection.
  
  
• James Grieder also wrote this article about William Sturgis Bigelow on Tuckernuck.
  
  
• William Sturgis Bigelow also actively promoted Japanese scholars to positions in American institutions (particularly the MFA) and was a tireless advocate for the nation through his political connections. Christopher Benfey covers his efforts in detail.

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

• Janica Nimura is also author of The Doctors Blackwell about Elizabeth Blackwell the first woman to received a M.D., and her sister Emily, who was even more skilled. Together they founded the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City.
  
  
• While Sutematsu Yamakawa was the youngest of her siblings to travel to the West, at least two of her brothers and two of her sisters also made the journey.
  
  
• In the early 1860’s Kiyotaka Kuroda was a skilled swordsman of the Satsuma domain, deeply resentful of the Western “invaders”. After witnessing the British shelling of Kagoshima in 1863, he realized that only military parity would ensure Japan’s independence and immediately began to study western gunnery. This existential need for parity, as well as the recognition they embodied the samurai spirit, led Kuroda to consider the defeated Aizu and others a valuable asset to Japan’s future. After a turbulent career, he became Prime Minister of Japan in 1888.
  
  
• Though he went on to have a distinguished career in military service and education in the Satsuma-dominated Meiji Era, Hiroshi Yamakawa continued to support the exiled Aizu community for the rest of his life, at great personal and financial cost. 
  
  
• Soon after arriving in New Haven, it was clear that Sutematsu and Shige would assimilate faster in separate households, and Shigei was sent to live with the family of Rev. J. S. C. Abbott. Rev. Abbott had previously led the Nantucket Congregational Church, and Shige later recalled visiting the island with one of Rev. Abbotts’ daughters during a summer break. 
  
  
• Shige was not the first  citizen of Meijii Japan to visit Nantucket. Three students from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute stayed several weeks in 1872 and gave several newspaper interviews.
  
  
• While they were undoubtedly acquainted, neither Shige nor Sutematsu took a class with Maria Mitchell. However, Sutematsu’s classmate, Florence Easton, (later Conable) not only studied with Prof. Mitchell, but later supported the Maria Mitchell Association. In 1913 she hosted Capt. Richard and Caroline Swain at her home in Monrovia California. As Caroline also likely knew Sutematsu she was probably a point of conversation. Florence Easton Conable donated the scrapbook she kept at Vassar to the Maria Mitchell Association. Tucked into it is a “carte de visite” photo of Sutematsu taken at the Borgardus studio in New York City. A diary kept by another classmate, Anne Wyman Southworth, now in the Vassar collection, puts both Flora and Sutematsu at that studio on Jan 22nd, 1882.

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

• In addition to Hen frigates: wives of merchant captains under sail, Joan Druett has four other books in the Nantucket Atheneum collection. We highly recommend Petticoat whalers: whaling wives at sea, 1820-1920.  She has almost thirty books in the CLAMS and online collections, including several works of historical and crime fiction. 
  
  
• A thousand leagues of blue : the Pacific whaling voyages of Charles and Susan Veeder of Nantucket by Betsy Tyler is based on the remarkable illustrated journals Susan Veeder kept during a four-year whaling voyage with her husband, Capt. Charles Veeder. It also illustrates the preciousness of a mariner’s life as Charles apparently descended into madness on a later trip. 
  • (Betsy also joined us in 2022 for a podcast discussion about the creation of the Atheneum’s 1900 catalogue.)
• Eleanor Creasy and her navigation career is discussed in Steven Ujifusa’s Barons of the Sea, and in Flying Cloud: the true story of America's most famous clipper ship and the woman who guided her by David W. Shaw.
  
  
• Recognition of Emma Armstrong’s actions on the clipper Templar was grounded in acclaim for her father’s overall command.  The citation from the Board of Marine Underwriters of San Francisco is representative.
  
  
• Mary Ann Brown Patten replaced her incapacitated husband as commander and navigator of the clipper ship Neptune’s Car for 56 days. While she was slightly older than Ellen Armstrong, (nineteen vs fifteen), the First Mate had already been put in irons, the Second Mate had no navigational experience, she faced a mutiny, and was seven months pregnant. More details in the Feb 18, 1857, New York Tribune article is quoted here.
  
  
• As Joan Druett notes in her blog post, medical treatment on a 19th Century whale ship relied on the skills (and tools) used to kill and dismember whales.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

• Like many members of the Nantucket diaspora, Capt. Swain subscribed to the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror. In 1911, in response to an article mentioning Abram Quarry, Swain wrote a letter of his memories of the man, whom he knew as a youngster. He also noted that Abram Quarry’s house in Shimmo was on land belonging to Capt. Swain’s grandfather, Hezekiah Swain. (I&M, Sept 16, 1911,Pg 2)
• Several former-Nantucket residents resided in Meiji Japan. One, the dentist Dr. George D. Richmond was good friends with Captains Fisher and Swain and sent several letters to the I&M detailing their gatherings.
  • An article in the I&M, likely based on one of Dr, Richmond’s letters, described how the trio, nostalgic for a traditional New England boiled dinner, arranged the shipment of a salt cod to Japan.
• Caroline Furber Swain seems to have held some views independent of her husband. 
  • During their 1912 visit to Nantucket, Capt. Swain gave an interview that generally praised the Japanese maritime industry and its military. However, he disparaged a certain naval officer he had met who while “educated, cultured and in every respect the equal of an unsuperstitious, clear-headed American,” also held the “…common superstition that the Emperor [of Japan] was something more than human and could command the forces of nature…” (Boston Sunday Post, July 14, 1912)
  • A month later Caroline Swain gave an informal talk at the Nantucket Quaker Meeting House about Japan, and as reported in the I&M, “…At the close she paid a truly eloquent tribute to the underlying spirit of religion of Japan, making a plea for those of Christian education and faith, to judge it kindly and leniently…”. (I&M Aug 8, 1912, Pg 2).

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

• By the 1860’s American merchant ships and whales increasingly utilized Pacific ports for support. The services at these ports were frequently run by merchants from Nantucket and other sea-trading communities as extensions of their existing businesses along the eastern Atlantic.
  • The whaling voyage of the  Clara Bell under Capt. Timothy Fisher seems to have been based out of Paita, Peru, which had grown to include a hospital and resident American Counsel. (In 1862, Dr. C. F. Winslow of Nantucket was appointed to that post).
  • It’s possible that Arthur Fisher periodically resided at Paita with his mother and sister as part of the American expat community while the Clara Bell followed the pattern of Nantucket whaling from the pre-Pacific era – voyages of week or perhaps months, broken by extended periods at “home”.
  • The extreme duration of the Clara Bell’s voyage may have been driven by the American Civil War. Confederate Raiders targeted the American whalers, which were slow moving and poorly defended while carrying a highly desirable cargo. Relatively short trips and the safety of a foreign port, while far from safe, was less risky than long voyages far from shore.
• United today by a network of bridges of tunnels, the islands of Japan and the Seto Inland Sea of Japan was previously dependent on ships traveling between coastal ports. After Japan was forced to open its borders, steamships extended routine travel to Korea, China, and other parts of Asia.

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

The three captains we profile were atypical in their longevity and financial stability.

• Nantucket-born Robert Coleman, who was just a few years younger than Arthur Fisher, had risen to First Officer of the Mitsu-Bishi Steamship Co. However, in 1886 , he died, age 29, during a smallpox outbreak at Nagasaki.
  
  
• Our subjects were also impacted by the lack of shared information and slow transmission of information that did exist.
  • Credit rating agencies and uniform accounting procedures did not yet exist, so even within a firm, serious issues could go undetected.
  • Merchants had to rely on an individual’s reputation within their business community or a referral from a trusted party. Better candidates undoubtedly existed, but they were unknown or could not be verified.
  • Until the deployment of the telegraph, a round-trip business communication between China and America could take up to a year.
  • Even with the construction of the railway across Panama communication between California and the East Coast cities took several weeks, contributing to the glut of goods arriving at San Francisco and the collapse of its markets.
• On Nantucket whaleships, a cooper made and assembled the casks, whose liquid contents were measured in barrels (1 barrel = 31 ½ U.S. gallons). 
  
  
• George Bruce Upton, (1804-1874), exemplified how Nantucket’s wealth helped fuel America’s westward expansion.
• A successful Nantucket merchant, he held several political offices, and was a member of a firefighting company, skilled using explosives to demolish buildings as a firestop. He supervised the practice demolition of a vacant windmill, and during the Great Fire of 1838 the destruction of four buildings.
• After moving to Boston Upton channeled his Nantucket wealth into clipper ships. He also invested in railroads as part of John M. Forbes’ “Boston Group”, becoming Treasurer of their Michigan Central Railroad. 
• Portraits of George Upton and Anne Upton, now in the NHA, reflect their status. Their son George Jr. would become a regular summer visitor into the 20th century.
• The Bark Ly-ee-moon was commissioned for the Asia trade and built in Fairhaven Massachusetts by Moses Delano (distant relative of Warren). It was sold by its American owners to a Hong Kong firm before its launch in 1862. 

© The Nantucket Atheneum

• In 1852, Cmdr. Perry visited New Bedford “for the purpose of obtaining information from our whaling captains in relation to the cost of Japan and securing their cooperation in the enterprise.” [I&M, May 8th, 1852]
  
  
• Manjuro’s life is featured in Christopher Benfey’s “Great Wave”.  His years in New Bedford are detailed in “The Life and Times of John Manjuro,” by D. R. Bernard. Manjuro was lucky to be brought before the ruler of Satsuma, who was particularly unhappy with the Shogunate and already looking to the West for both trade and weapons technology. 
  
  
• Warren Delano’s involvement in the opium trade and the resulting First Opium War is discussed in “Barons of the Sea”. Both Wars and their legacy is covered in Julia Lovell’s “The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China”.
  • Not lost on the Japanese negotiators was that the “Unfair” treaties being imposed on them by the Western Powers were based on those imposed on China after the First Opium War. 
  • While the West remained intransigent on most of the other terms, they readily agreed to ban importation of opium into Japan, mainly because of Japanese demand for other Western goods.
  • The Boshin War and its aftermath are the backdrop to Janice Nimura’s “Daughters of the Samurai”, which we will cover in upcoming episodes. 
• With Perry ‘s arrival, the Shogunate knew they had to open Japan, but planned to do so only to quickly reach parity and then re-negotiate as equals.
  • However, even this was seen as surrender by the already unhappy Samurai, leading to their rebellion.
  • Over the next 15 years, the Shogunate was violently disposed, the nobility transitioned to becoming governors of their former domains, and a small group of younger Samurai consolidated their power, ruling in the name of the Emperor (though any decisions made by the monarch had to be obeyed).
• Dr. Noelle Wilson gave an excellent presentation about the Japanese whaling apprentice programs and Hakkodate’s brief role as the “Nantucket of the Pacific” as part of the NHA Nantucket University  series.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

• Key texts consulted for this episode include:
  • “A modern history of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present (3rd ed.)” by A. Andrew Gordon. (2014, Oxford University Press.) 
  • Japan: The Story of A Nation (4th ed.), by E. O. Reischauer. . (1989, McGraw-Hill) . [somewhat dated]

Both are available from the Nantucket Atheneum via the Commonwealth Catalog 

• A more visual resource is the “MIT Visualizing Cultures” website . It includes several modules on Tokugawa and Meiji Japan, utilizing a mix of graphic and text display.
  
  
• Those with a basic understanding of the Meiji Era should enjoy the “Meiji at 150 Podcast” series created at the University of British Columbia in 2017-2018
  
  
• If you watched the recent adaptation of James Clavel’s “Shogun”: 
  • The consolidation of power under the Shogunate and the closing off of Japan to outsiders occurred in the early 1600’s, bringing an end to the centuries of  war and chaos depicted in most Samurai movies.
  • The events discussed in this podcast begin roughly 250 years after “Shogun”, (i.e. starting around 1850). For perspective, that’s about as far as we are today from the Boston Tea Party.
• Most Westerners perceived Japan as having three significant hierarchical social classes: Nobility, Samurai, and “Commoners”. Aside from the imposition of Western concepts, what was sometimes overlooked was that “Commoners” had its own hierarchy.
  • “Peasants” were the most esteemed, followed by skilled artisans. Merchants, considered non-productive, were placed near the bottom.
  • Social hierarchy didn’t always reflect economic reality. Many peasants (i.e. farmers), in both the West and Japan could be quite prosperous and influential in their community.
  • Ironically, the stability imposed by the Shogunate not only facilitated peasant wealth, it enabled the rise of densely populated cities. Merchant and artisan “townsmen”, low in the social order, also ascended to the top of the economic order.
  • This new wealth was increasingly detached from the traditional agricultural economy and the taxation that supported the Noble and Samurai classes. The resulting social tensions came to a head when Perry’s ships visited Edo (now Tokyo) in 1853).
• The concept of the “Great Divergence” remains controversial. What is agreed is that many 19th Century Westerners perceived Japan as “backward” in at least their technology, and that remarkable strides were made (as we shall see in later episodes), to close the gap in just a few decades.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

Nantucket’s connection to Japan pre-dates Commodore Perry’s arrival and extends to the present day. Our podcast series focuses on a handful of individuals, active in the Meiji era of Japan (1868-1912), as they illuminate the rich complexity of that connection. We hope that others will be inspired by to bring additional lives and eras to light…  

• For those new to Nantucket and its history, our “go-to” introduction is Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Away Off Shore”. 
  
  
• The Summer 1999 Issue of the NHA’s Historic Nantucket Magazine was devoted to the islanders’ experience in Gold Rush California. 
  
  
• The post-whaling emigration from Nantucket’s was common knowledge at the time. A “Letter From Nantucket” originally published in the Fall River News on Aug 3, 1877, and reprinted in the I&M on Aug 18th (page 4), describes:
  “….its sons bearing the honored names of Coffin, Hussey, Barker, Rotch, Joy, Macy, Starbuck, Mitchell, or others equally familiar, leaving the paternal roofs, and applying their native shrewdness and their academic and collegiate education in honorable avocations in distant marts; with its daughters famed for their beauty, tidiness and culture, presiding over houses in all the Northern States.….For one hundred years Nantucket prospered; now she sits in widow’s weeds.” 
  
  
• “Barons of the Sea and Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper Ship” by Steven Ujifusa is available at the Nantucket Atheneum and Island bookstores. 
  
  
• Additional information about Frederick Sanford is  available at the Nantucket Atheneum Reference Dept, including background information on the five Delano and Low ships whose portraits hang in the Atheneum Great Hall. 
  
  
• The Nantucket Atheneum also has copies of Mr. Ujifusa’s recent works:
  • A man and his ship: America's greatest naval architect and his quest to build the S.S. United States “ 
  • The last ships from Hamburg : business, rivalry, and the race to save Russia's Jews on the eve of World War I 

© Nantucket Atheneum

Sit back, open your mind, and get ready for ... Japan-Nantucket (Rashomon)

In this season of the podcast, we will explore one aspect of the “Nantucket diaspora” by tracing three journeys:

Islanders who built careers commanding Japanese-owned steamships and resided in Japan for decades. While they tried to maintain their former lives in western enclaves, their brief return visits to the Island revealed how different they had become. 

Three young Japanese girls making the reverse journey, from Japan to America. Not as immigrants, but students, mandated to return and help transform their once-closed nation into a modern industrial state. Like our Captains, the girls were changed by the experience and after their return struggled to remain  “Japanese” in a nation balance tradition against the existential need to become a global power.

Americans who went to Japan not to make their fortune, but to acquire and preserve its material past before it was swept away by the modern age. They quickly discovered that the decision of what to acquire, and whose opinion to follow, altered the definition of what was  “authentic”. And their immersion in a culture they were just beginning to comprehend altered their sense of what was authentic in their own lives.

Three books, will be our guideposts for these journeys:

1.         Barons of the Sea, by Steven UIjifusa

2.         Daughters of the Samurai, by Janice Namura

3.         The Great Wave, by Steven Benfey

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

Notes on Henry Clapp's epitaph written by his friends and colleagues:
 - The first lines are from a poem by William Winter
- “Figaro” refers to Clapp's pen name.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.
www.NantucketAtheneum.org
Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum
Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum

CLICK HERE to read the full announcement for Clapp’s “Paris As It Is” lecture series the Nantucket Weekly Mirror on March 25, 1854

The episode image is by Frank Bellew is from the February 6, 1864 issue of Demorest's New York Illustrated News. 

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.
www.NantucketAtheneum.org
Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum
Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

CLICK HERE to read the full review of “The True Aim of Life”, Inquirer & Mirror, Dec. 18, 1841” 

CLICK HERE to see the map of Nantucket by William Coffin and published by Henry Clapp Sr. in 1834.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.
www.NantucketAtheneum.org
Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum
Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

Read the special notice for the Mammoth Panorama in the Inquired and Mirror on Monday, March 26, 1849 HERE.

See photos and more information about the Gettysburg Cyclorama HERE.

More on John Banvard from Atlas Obscura can be found HERE.

In 1918, the New Bedford Whaling Museum acquired the Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Round the World, created by artists Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington in 1848, and recently completed work on its preservation.
Click here to watch a video of the panorama.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. 

www.NantucketAtheneum.org
Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum
Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

Resources and additional information:

Woodcut images from Yankee Hill's book Scenes from the Life of an Actor (1853).
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Q6q8FgL3eAA/RrsXpR3WdxI/AAAAAAAAAG8/9TaIPNb2UOg/s1600-h/hiramdodgeyankeepeddler.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Q6q8FgL3eAA/RrsXph3WdyI/AAAAAAAAAHE/_83I2-tJdxY/s1600-h/jedidiahhomebredgreenmountainboy.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Q6q8FgL3eAA/RrsXph3WdzI/AAAAAAAAAHM/u_f83eUs4jM/s1600-h/nathantuckerwifeforaday.gif

Woodcut images of Dr. Valentine’s Comic Metamorphoses
Click here for photos.

Portraits of Signor Blitz
Click here for photos.
Advertisement for Signor Blitz's performance at Atheneum Hall, which appeared in the April 14, 1840 issue of The Islander.
Click here to see ad.

Andrew MacAllister in his elaborate stage costumes.
Click here for photos.

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie.

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.
www.NantucketAtheneum.org
Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum
Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. 

www.NantucketAtheneum.org

Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum

Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

"Sacred Harp Singing," the musical background for American music

"The Old Granite State," anthem of the Hutchinsons

Photo of the Hutchinson Family Singers. c. 1845

Announcement for the Aeolians Performance, which appears in the Inquirer and Mirror on June 24, 1843

Billed as the “Cumbrian (Welsh) Infants,” an engraving from the September 18, 1841 edition of the Inquirer and Mirror shows the three younger siblings playing violin, concertina, and harp. Margaret and John Arthur are standing on tables, while their older brother David Edward stands in the center looking directly at the viewer.

Hutchinson Family founds Hutchinson, MN:

Judson, John, and Asa continued touring as a trio after their sister married, venturing into the midwestern states. In November 1855, the three brothers founded the town of Hutchinson, MN. It forbade liquor, bowling alleys, and gambling of all types, and granted that women “shall enjoy equal rights with men and shall have the privilege of voting in all matters not restricted by law.”

In 1942, muralist Elsa Jemne completed an egg tempera on plaster mural, The Hutchinson Singers, in the town's post office. Still there, post office murals were a thing and part of the New Deal. (That’s for another podcast…)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_post_office_murals

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.

It was hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Reference Library Associate James Greider for his knowledge and research. Newspaper announcement voiced by Andrew Cromartie. 

If you have an idea for what we should talk about next, send us an email at jforest@nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA. 

www.NantucketAtheneum.org

Facebook: @NantucketAtheneum

Instagram: @NantucketAtheneum 

In this season of the podcast, Reference Library Associate James Grieder introduces you to the lesser known performers, speakers and guests that took to the stage in "Atheneum Hall." Find out what drew them to the shores of Nantucket and how they were received by islanders.

Credits:
This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri

If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

More about Eraosthenes
Two centuries after Aristotle, an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer, named Eraosthenes, (Aira-Tass-Ta-Knees), became head of the Library of Alexandra. This was a winning combination of skills: besides having access to the scientific works in the library, his training enabled him to identify key information as new material arrived. One day he received a letter from a colleague in Syene, a city directly to the south, and whose distance from Alexandria had been measured. The letter said that on a certain day of the year, at solar noon the sun not only on the east-west meridian, but also north-south meridian. It was directly overhead, and the shadows had no angle. (Mathematically the angle of the shadows was 0 degrees) 

On the same date the following year, at solar noon, Eraosthenes measured the angle of the shadows cast at Alexandra and, using trigonometry and the information from the letter, calculated the earth’s circumstance. Even though some of his information was inaccurate, the calculation was only off by 15 per cent.

With the size of the earth established, if you measured the angle of the sun at your location at solar noon, and you also knew the latitude where the sun was on the north-south meridian that day, you could determine your latitude even at sea. Experienced sailors had long done this to estimate their position on familiar routes, but now it could be precisely calculated in unfamiliar waters. 

Eraosthenes is also credited with inventing a coordinate system – forerunner of the today’s latitude and longitude – to create a map of the known world, again using the Library’s resources, that was said to show the location of over 400 cities. 

Over the centuries his techniques and coordinate systems were refined by many others, slowly increasing their precision. Latitude coordinates were eventually fixed, with the equator set to zero degrees, reaching to ninety degrees at the North and South poles. 

Mathematicians and astronomers computed table of the sun’s latitude for every day of the year. Similar tables were computed for other celestial bodies. After completing the necessary angular observations, mariners used these tables to determine their latitude (knowledge of geometry and trig was also very helpful).

Credits:
This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri and Historian and Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association Jascin Leonardo Finger for their research and insights.

If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

 

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.

You can visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

In this episode, Jascin and Jim discuss what doors the comet discovery opens for Maria and the people she would meet along the way. 

Credits:
This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri and Historian and Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association Jascin Leonardo Finger for their research and insights.

Resources and additional information:

If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

• Maria Mitchell traveled to Europe twice. First in 1857 and again in 1873. She remained in contact through letters with the people she met even if she never saw them in person again.

• When the Nautical Almanac was proposed, Alexander Dallas Bache, Charles Henry Davis, and their colleagues wanted to use an American Prime Meridian in the calculations, but once again ran into resistance against a “National Observatory”.  The issue was escalated to Congress, and the House Committee on Naval Affairs, and the “compromise” was that Washington D.C. would be used as the Prime Meridian for astronomy and geography, while Greenwich (The Royal Observatory) was used as the Prime Meridian for navigation. 

• To learn more about the Marvelous Miss Harriet Martineau (the original influencer!), check out Season 2, Episode 6. 

• Find more about Harriet Hosmer and her work here:

https://nmwa.org/art/artists/harriet-goodhue-hosmer/

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/harriet-hosmer-2314

• More about Maria Mitchell's admiration of Mary Somerville from the December, 26, 2022 edition of DayBreak from True Island Digital:
"The preeminent British polymath and science writer Mary Fairfax Somerville was born on this date in 1780. Among her many publications was the first, Mechanism of the Heavens (1831), and her groundbreaking The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834). The latter “was even more ambitious in summarizing astronomy, physics, geography, and meteorology,” explains Britannica.com. Both inspired many European astronomers.
Mary Fairfax Somerville portrait, public domain • Vassar Encylopedia |  | Among Somerville’s most avid American admirers was Nantucket-born astronomer Maria Mitchell. In 1858, while touring Europe, Mitchell met with the aging Somerville for multiple visits— chronicled by Vassar College, where Mitchell became 

References and more information:

If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING


Check out Betsy's book The Nantucket Atheneum: A History,  and her latest book A Thousand Leagues of Blue.

Credits
The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Voice of Clara Parker by Sammy Aguiar.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

The term “Black Swan” refers to an event which was unexpected, previously unimaginable, and had lasting consequences. The Bonds would face three black swans inside a decade on top of a series of tragedies that were just a matter of life in the 1800s. The greatness of the challenge is matched and surpassed by their resilience and focus. This is a dark episode but stick around until the end to find out how it all turns out. 

Credits:
This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri for his research and insights.

Resources and additional information:
If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

•Two letters from George Bond to Richard and Sarah indicating Sarah’s mechanical and mathematical abilities.

George to Richard – October 14, 1864

George to Sarah (Sally) – October 30, 1864


• The unabridged letter Sarah Bond sent to the Third Women’s Conference in 1875, which was presided over by Maria Mitchell.

"Potential Employments Open to Women" by S. A. C. Bond

• Listen to Episode 7 of Season 2 "How Dewey Catalogue These Books" to learn more about what it took for Sarah Bond to re-catalogue the collection according to the new Dewey Decimal System.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.

You can visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Credits:
This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri and Historian and Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association Jascin Leonardo Finger for their research and insights.

Voice of Alexander Dallas Bache performed by Andrew Cromartie.

Resources and additional information:
If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

•Click HERE for an image of the Bonds' American Method Device.
Source: Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University

• More on the fraying of the relationship between the Bonds and the US Coast Survey (USCS)

The 1851 Exhibition marked a turning point in Bache's relationship with the Bonds. Bache had previously considered the Bonds as overly compliant towards Airy and the Liverpool Observatory during their longitude work for the USCS, and now he quietly began looking for an alternative to the Harvard College Observatory (HCO).  

The situation worsened when George Bond got into a scientific fight with several of Bache's allies around 1854; a few had Harvard and USCS/Nautical Almanac connections, and almost all were part of the "Lazzaroni" group headed by Prof. Agassiz at Harvard.  When the Lazzaroni pushed the creation of the National Academy of Sciences in early 1863, George Bond was conspicuously excluded.

That said, most of Bache's attempts to cut out the Bonds ended in failure. HCO and Bond & Sons kept innovating and improving their products, and the HCO continued to be a significant "default" latitude point for North America.   

It was only ten years later, with the start of the Civil War, that Bache finally succeeded. Matthew Maury, the head of the US Naval Observatory joined the Confederacy, and a Bache ally took over the USNO. The Nautical Almanac moved to Washington, and coastal survey work ended, leaving the HCO isolated and underfunded. Most of the HCO's assistants enlisted for the Union, and George Bond, now widowed and working almost alone, gave up coffee and newspapers to help cut costs. The HCO was still doing important work and was critical to the success of Bond & Sons, but the center of gravity had shifted to the latter, now run by Richard Bond and John Clinch. 

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.

You can visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Credits:

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri and Historian and Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association Jascin Leonardo Finger for their research and insights.

Resources and additional information:
If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

• The US Coast Survey was first established in 1807 at direction of President Thomas Jefferson, but it would find its stride under the leadership of Superintendent Alexander Dallas Bache.

 https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/about/history-of-coast-survey.html

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.

You can visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

But before we get into the juicy details, we need to rewind the clock back to the early 1800s when time was relative and relatively irrelevant.

We’re going to get a bit technical in this episode, but bear with us. It’s important to understand the technology that was available at the time, so you can appreciate the colossal advancements the Bonds and the Mitchells made.

Credits:

This has been a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. 

Written, edited and narrated by Janet Forest 

Special thanks to the Atheneum’s Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri and Historian and Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association Jascin Leonardo Finger for their research and insights.

Resources and additional information:
If you want to know more about this topic, check our this very thorough list of resources that Jim has compiled: FURTHER READING

• Jim refers to 360 degree of longitude. While this is mathematically true, most folks think of Longitude as split 180 degrees East/West at Greenwich.  Before Greenwich was officially recognized as 0 degrees Long, the split could be at any arbitrary point.

• John Harrison developed and perfected the chronometer, but it took a long time for him to receive recognition. Read more here: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/harrisons-clocks-longitude-problem

• More about the founding of the US Coast Survey:
 https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/about/history-of-coast-survey.html

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, MA.

You can visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

In this limited series, Jim Borzillari Reference Library Associate at the Nantucket Atheneum and Jascin Finger Deputy Director of the Maria Mitchell Association peel back the layers of these two extraordinary families and the impact and influence they had then and now.

In this episode, Tyler shares what to expect at this year’s festival.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written narrated and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Tyler Angle for bringing the Dance Festival to Nantucket year after year.

The Nantucket Dance Festival will run from July 18 to July 23, and many events are free and open to the public. You can find all the details and where to buy tickets at nantuketatheneum.org.

In this episode, Tyler talks about the different ways in which this week-long event has woven itself into the fabric of our island community.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written narrated and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks to Tyler Angle for bringing the Dance Festival to Nantucket year after year.

The Nantucket Dance Festival will run from July 18 to July 23, and many events are free and open to the public. You can find all the details and where to buy tickets at nantuketatheneum.org.

Artistic Director Tyler Angle took over as Artistic Director of the Dance Festival in 2013, and in this episode, he shares how the Festival has evolved during his tenure.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written narrated and edited by Janet Forest. Special Thanks to Tyler Angle for bringing the Dance Festival to Nantucket year after year.

The Nantucket Dance Festival will run from July 18 to July 23, and many events are free and open to the public. You can find all the details and where to buy tickets at nantuketatheneum.org.

Artistic Director Tyler Angle talks about what it is like for the dancers to make the transition from large prestigious venues to our comparatively small stage at Nantucket High School.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written narrated and edited by Janet Forest. Special Thanks to Tyler Angle for bringing the Dance Festival to Nantucket year after year.

The Nantucket Dance Festival will run from July 18 to July 23, and many events are free and open to the public. You can find all the details and where to buy tickets at nantuketatheneum.org.

Sarah Woolsey and Helen Hunt Jackson moved in the same circles as Jane Austin and Emily Dickenson, and yet somehow they have been completely lost to popular memory? 

References and Resources:

• Read more about Sarah Chauncey Woolsey's life and career.
• Read more about Helen Hunt Jackson's life and career.

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri. 

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

They also peruse a 19th century “beach read” by Edward Bellamy set on Nantucket that you may or may not want to add to your summer reading list.

References and Resources:

• Watch Jim Borzilleri's virtual presentation on Frederick Sanford
• Check out a photo of Edward Bellamy's handlebar mustache
• Read an unabridged version of Six to One by Edward Bellamy

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri. 

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

• The Nantucket Atheneum: A History by Betsy Tyler
• "Online Conversation: Nantucket Native Frederick Coleman Sanford" with Jim Borzilleri

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to Betsy Tyler for contributing her research and insights.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

References and more information:
Check out Betsy's book The Nantucket Atheneum: A History,  and her latest book A Thousand Leagues of Blue.

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri. Voice of Clara Parker by Sammy Aguiar.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

• David Ricardo
• Adam Smith
• James Mill. 
• Thomas Malthus
• Jeremy Bentham. 

Miss Martineau's  works that popularized the ideas and theory of great thinkers:

• Illustrations of Political Economy, 9 volumes, published by Charles Fox, 1832-4
• Illustrations of Taxation, 5 volumes, published by Charles Fox, 1832-4
• Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated (1833-4)

source: https://victorianweb.org/authors/martineau/diniejko.html

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Janet and Jim also speculate on why book titles used to be so gosh darn long.


The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri.

Click here to read The History of Chivalry.

You can find other volumes by George Payne Rainsford James on Hoopla, which is free to use with your library card.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Jim talks about why islanders at the time were keeping up with discoveries far beyond the shores of Nantucket and how it served them.

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri.

References and Resources: 

To learn more about the early ferry service to Nantucket check out this article from Yesterday’s Island.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Jim puts a few volumes and the authors in their historical context and draws parallels to the present day.

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.  It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri.

More on Phrenology courtesy of Jim Borzilleri

·  One concept Phrenology basically got right was the localization of function in the brain. However, they went overboard in their assignment of specific traits and behaviors to a specific region, let alone its mapping on the outer skull.

·  Johann Gaspar Spurzheim was a student of Franz Josef Gall.  Gall tended to focus on the negative traits, while Spurzheim’s work tended to focus on the “good” behaviors, possibly to make it more appealing to a reform-minded 19th century audience.

Here is more information on Phrenology and images of the Phrenology Bust.

https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/2015/06/18/one-lump-or-two-phrenology-diagnosed-by-the-bump/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/facing-a-bumpy-history-144497373/

https://nha.org/research/nantucket-history/history-topics/what-was-phrenology-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-nantucket-history/
 

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

Jim explains the significance of the 1841 library catalogue created by the first head librarian Maria Mitchell, and Janet asks Jim about one of the items in the catalogue: Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville.

The Shelves of Yore is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum.
 It was written, narrated, and edited by Janet Forest and researched by Jim Borzilleri 

References and Resources:

The Nantucket Atheneum: A History by Betsy Tyler.  Available to borrow at the library.

What is a panopticon? And what does it have to do with Alexis De Tocqueville?

The panopticon was the brainchild of English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. It is a building design that allows a single prison guard to see and control all the inmates, while all the inmates cannot see each other or the security guard. The theory was that if criminals were isolated and left alone with their thoughts and knowing they are under constant surveillance, they will reform their bad behavior.

Alexis De Tocqueville and his colleague Gustave de Beaumont were sent to United States by the French crown observe and report back on the American penitentiary system. Among other places they visited the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philidelphia that was built in 1829 by the Quakers and had many of the characteristics of Bentham’s vision of panopticon.

Click here for an image of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. 

For more information about how the panopticon still influences our prison system, check out Ted Conover’s Vanity Fair 2015 article “Guantanamo Bay Solitary Confinement”

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Visit us online at www.nantucketatheneum.org

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts. We’d love for you to come by and say hello.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts. We’d love for you to come by and say hello.

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts. We’d love for you to come by and say hello.

You can visit our website at www.nantucketatheneum.org

You can visit our website at nantucketatheneum.org

Special thanks to the Atheneum Staff featured in this episode:
(In order of appearance.)
Katy Dehart --Children's Library Associate
Pamela McGrady -- Library Associate in Charge of Acquisitions
Ann Scott -- Executive Director
Elizabeth Kelly -- Head of Circulation
Laura Pless Freedman -- Library Associate
Lincoln Thurber -- Head of Reference
Jim Borzilleri -- Reference Library Associate
Ellen Young -- Young Adult Library Associate
Leslie Malcom -- Head of Children's

The Nantucket Atheneum is located at 1 India Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts. We’d love for you to come by and say hello.

Special thanks to the Atheneum Staff featured in this episode:
(In order of appearance)
Ann Scott -- Executive Director
Elizabeth Kelly -- Head of Circulation
Jessi Dearborn -- Children's Library Associate
Leslie Malcom -- Head of Children's
Katy Dehart --Children's Library Associate
Lincoln Thurber -- Head of Reference
Jim Borzilleri -- Reference Library Associate
Laura Pless Freedman -- Library Associate
Pamela McGrady -- Library Associate in Charge of Acquisitions
Ellen Young -- Young Adult Library Associate

www.nantucketatheneum.org