Tag: Nantucket Atheneum

Cold Turkey Plunge
Nantucket Events

A Cold Tradition for Turkey Day

More than two decades ago, the Nantucket Atheneum was chosen as beneficiary of a fundraising effort that has become such beloved island tradition. Even during the pandemic, participants continued to do it from homes around the world. This November 28, more than 1,000 people will again gather on Children’s Beach, […]

Nantucket Atheneum
Nantucket Events

Thought, Fun, & Songs: Weekend at the Library

Formed in 1834 as a private, membership organization, the Nantucket Atheneum has had nine librarians in its storied history, beginning with famous astronomer Maria Mitchell. Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846 destroyed the former building and virtually all of the library’s collections. The Atheneum was rebuilt on the same site in […]

Nantucket Dance Festival
Nantucket Arts, Nantucket Events

Poetry Written by Our Bodies

As writers use words to articulate the human condition, dancers uses movement to express human emotion. Both artistic endeavors require dedication and imagination, hard work and passion, giving into rhythm and continuing with intention. Whether you use an interplay of words or an interplay of motion, both writing and dance communicate. As author Lene Fogelberg wrote: “Dancing is like poetry written by our bodies: our outstretched arms our words of longing.”

New Ireland Tatanua Dancing Mask
Featured Articles

Nantucket Atheneum Donates Important Collection to NHA

The Trustees of the Nantucket Atheneum and the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) are pleased to announce an important gift–one more than one hundred years in the making. A collection of historic artifacts, natural history specimens, and ethnographic objects from around the world, originally loaned to the NHA from the Atheneum […]

Nantucket History & People

Frederick Douglass on Nantucket

~ by Amy Jenness, author of On This Day in Nantucket History, available at Mitchell’s Book Corner ~ In the spring of 1841 Nantucket banker William C. Coffin traveled to New Bedford to attend an anti-slavery meeting. There he met a 23 year old runway slave named Frederick Douglass who […]