News and Events for Nantucket Island
Families on Nantucket have two free and festive community events to look forward to this week, courtesy of the Maria Mitchell Association and the Nantucket Historical Association. On Friday, July 31, the Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) will celebrate the 208th birthday of its namesake, astronomer Maria Mitchell, with a birthday […]
by Catherine Macallister The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us.” Maria Mitchell Vestal Street transforms every year on August […]
by Carl Oscar Olson The night sky above Nantucket is not like most places. Celestial bodies seem to shine differently here, thirty miles out to sea and surrounded by the dark waters of the Atlantic. We are far enough away from big city light pollution, and the air is clearer. […]
~ by Katherine Brooks with MMA Curator & Deputy Director Jascin Leonardo Finger ~ Heads: the King of Denmark. Tails: the goddess Urania. “A blazing and fiery comet flashes upon us… it is not strange that a slight shudder comes to even an intelligent observer. For how much do we […]
by Amy Jenness Maria Mitchell spent the first 11 years of her adulthood living a quiet life on Nantucket, first as a teacher and then as librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum. But that changed on a clear October night in 1847 when she saw a comet through her telescope and […]
~ by Jascin N. Leonardo Finger, MMA Deputy Director and Curator of the Mitchell House, Archives & Special Collections ~ In 1848, Nantucket-born and raised Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was invited to become the first female member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This […]
August 1 marks the 197th birthday of Maria Mitchell, who was born at 1 Vestal Street in 1818. To celebrate her life and legacy, the Maria Mitchell Association invites the public to an afternoon full of free activities and refreshments on Friday, July 31. The MMA campus on Vestal Street […]
