Historic Nantucket Spring 2019

SPRING 2019 VOLUME 69, NO. 2

NEW FINE ARTS GALLERY 21 SMITHSONIAN EXHIBIT 22

NEPTUNE’S GROTTO 26 HADWEN HOUSE EXHIBITS 28

SPRING 2019

|

VOLUME 69, NO. 2

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Kelly Williams, PRESIDENT Victoria McManus, VICE PRESIDENT

IMPORTANT DATES: April: Seward Johnson outdoor sculpture exhibition opens

May: Sara Roby Collection from the Smithsonian American Art Museum And the new Discovery Room and Kid’s Garden open

June:

David D. Worth Jr., VICE PRESIDENT

Summer Fest family activities at the Old Mill and Oldest House begin Jewish Life on Nantucket exhibition opens

July: Annual Members’ Meeting Nantucket 360th Symposium

August: Nantucket by Design extravaganza

Fine Arts Gallery unveiling

Melville Symposium

Hadwen House exhibitions open

Fine Art Symposium

William J. Boardman, TREASURER Michael Cozort, CLERK Sarah F. Alger Patricia S. Anathan Josette Blackmore Susan L. Blount Anne Marie Bratton Calvin R. Carver Jr. Olivia Charney Wylie A. Collins Amanda Cross Cam Gammill Graham Goldsmith Wendy Hudson Carl Jelleme William E. Little Jr. Carla McDonald Kennedy P. Richardson

April 1 - May 25

Whaling Museum, Open Daily, 10 A.M. – 4 P.M.

May 25 – October 14

Whaling Museum, Open Daily, 9 A.M. – 5 P.M. Historic Homes, Open Daily, 9 A.M. – 5 P.M. (Hadwen House, Thomas Macy House, and Greater Light) *Hadwen House opens June 28

Historic Sites, Open Daily, 11 A.M. – 4 P.M. (Oldest House, Old Mill, Quaker Meeting House, Old Gaol, and Fire Hose Cart House)

Research Library and Whitney Gallery Open Year – Round Tuesday- Friday, 10 A.M. – 4 P.M. Free and Open to the Public

ON THE COVER In Gosnold Hall by the sperm whale skeleton, Like Sea Glass: A Hand Full of Light, Echo or Shadow by M.J. Levy Dickson and Juvenile Sperm Whale, a watercolor by Flick Ford, donated by Quidley & Company, 2018

Janet Sherlund, TRUSTEE EMERITA Daisy Soros Carter Stewart Phoebe Tudor Finn Wentworth Jay Wilson, FRIENDS OF THE NHA PRESIDENT Alisa Wood PR I NT E D I N T H E U SA O N R E CY C L E D PA PE R , U S I N G V EG E TAB L E-B AS E D I N K

SPRING AND SUMMER HOURS OF OPERATION:

Marla Mullen Sanford

James Russell, GOSNELL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

HISTORIC NANTUCKET (ISSN 0439-2248) is published by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Periodical postage paid at Nantucket, MA, and additional entry offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, P.O. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554–1016; (508) 228–1894; fax: (508) 228–5618, ask@nha.org. For information visit nha.org. ©2019 by the Nantucket Historical Association.

Editor: Ashley Martin, Associate Director of Marketing Designer: Amanda Quintin, Amanda Quintin Design a l l p h o t o s b y n h a s ta f f u n l e s s o t h e r w i s e n o t e d .

NANTUCKET CLAIMS A SPECIAL PLACE in our nation’s consciousness. The Island’s history is filled with inspiring stories that provide valuable insight into our shared American experience. In this spirit, Trustees embarked on a year-long effort to write a new Strategic Plan. We share this plan with you here and welcome your feedback.

Importantly we ask Members to attend our Annual Meeting on July 17 when we will ask for a vote to adopt a revised mission statement. The new statement reads as follows: The Nantucket Historical Association preserves and interprets the history of Nantucket through its programs, collections, and properties, in order to promote the Island’s significance and foster an appreciation of it among all audiences.

This winter and spring, staff and guest curators have been busy reconceiving our galleries and building new ones. In April, Seward Johnson’s sculptures will be installed outside the Whaling Museum, in the Hadwen House garden and at the Artists Association. In May we unveil the Sara Roby Foundation Collection from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and in June we unveil the new Williams-Forsyth Gallery. We encourage all who have an interest in the arts and culture to look anew at the NHA. Shaping our 2019 programmatic focus, we look to three concurrent anniversaries. The NHA is 125 years old and over that time the association has repeatedly demonstrated its steadfast commitment to cherishing our heritage. The Island celebrates 360 years since first contact between the Wampanoag and English settlers.

Thirdly, Herman Melville’s 200th anniversary coincides with the departure of the Essex from the port of Nantucket reminding us of the enduring power of literature and the often perilous nature of whaling.

A commitment to scholarship and research is abundantly demonstrated in the publication of five books in 2019. Behind the scenes our multi-year digitization project continues with steadfast progress. Active conservation and acquisitions of important artifacts has accelerated. Importantly we continue investing heavily in our properties such that these are utilized with maximum effect for the public good.

In closing, we urge you to actively support our celebrated Nantucket By Design extravaganza this August, chaired by trustee Phoebe Tudor. This critically important event is by far the largest fundraiser organized by the NHA. New this year, we partner with the Nantucket Summer Antique Show to kick-off the 3-day long series of events, and culminate with a spectacular gala on Saturday August 3rd at the Whaling Museum.

We encourage you to visit with frequency as we believe you will be impressed with the many new presentations across our campus. We look forward to seeing you and thank you for your continuing support.

Kelly Williams President

James Russell Gosnell Executive Director

SUPPORT THE NHA’S MISSION WITH A GIFT TO THE ANNUAL FUND Donate early to support the exciting initiatives across the NHA campus this spring. Make a gift online at NHA.org For more information, contact the Development Department at giving@nha.org or 508-228-1894, ext. 116

3,000+ MEMBERS

12 PRE-CIVIL WAR

BUILDINGS

100,000 VISITORS

100,000 Photographs and Manuscripts

Presenting and Preserving

4 CENTURIES of Nantucket History

125

YEARS

25,000 ARTIFACTS

43 53 50+ 24 SQ.FT 25 Partners with

YEAR-ROUND

EMPLOYEES

SEASONAL

EMPLOYEES

111,000

PROPERTIES 2

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

Under Roof

Local and Regional Non-Profit Organizations

High School and College Interns

CELEBRATING 125 YEARS:

“Looking to the Future by Listening to the Past” NHA STRATEGIC PLAN 2019–2024 Proposed new Mission Statement to be voted upon at the NHA Annual Meeting on July 17: The Nantucket Historical Association preserves and interprets the history of Nantucket through its programs, collections and properties, in order to promote the island’s significance and foster an appreciation of it among all audiences

1) Invest in Our Community By presenting exemplary experiences across our portfolio of historic properties, we will deepen a connection to all in the community.

We will: • Develop unique year-round experiences to inspire children and youth across the campus.

• Become a destination for families, with immersive learning experiences.

• Partner with island schools on meaningful student engagement projects.

• Provide avocational programs fostering an appreciation of early American decorative arts.

• Act as a convener for community cultural projects.

• Work with the different island communities to help them record their own histories.

• Work in partnership to accomplish shared goals.

• Ensure that our scope of presentations reflect the diversity of our community.

• Advocate for island issues as they pertain to our mission.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

3

2) Excel at Exhibition Presentation and Storytelling

3) Seek Highest and Best Uses for Our Properties

Our island has many distinguishing stories that provide insight into our shared American experience. Informed encounters with the past allow us to apply lessons in the present and better prepare us for the future.

Our portfolio of historic properties must be commensurate with the ability to care for them. Maintaining an appropriate balance, such that these assets can be sustained, is critical to our success.

We will:

We will:

• Offer inspiring programs and exhibitions across our properties.

• Streamline our portfolio of properties to an optimally sustainable level.

• Invest in our interpretive and interactive capabilities at our historic sites.

• Integrate properties to provide a unified experience.

• Connect Nantucket’s history to national and global issues of today.

• Renovate the Thomas Macy Warehouse and convert it to NHA programmatic and retail usage.

• Expand our technological outreach capabilities.

• Renovate the Hadwen House and convert it to exhibition space.

• Broaden Nantucket stories told to meet an array of interests.

• Integrate our signature sites in ways that strengthen our brand.

• Implement evaluation efforts to ensure that programs are increasingly successful.

• Introduce multi-dimensional learning across our sites.

• Actively seek off-island opportunities to showcase our collections.

4

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

• Establish a cluster of experiences along Main Street.

• Convert the Peter Foulger Museum into premium exhibition spaces.

• Upgrade climate control systems and storage capacity at the Gosnold Collections Center.

• Increase investment in our proactive capital expenditures plan.

• Invest in new accommodations at our Bartlett Road campus for students and employees.

• Commence preliminary investigation of new construction at 4 Whalers Lane.

4) Steward and Increase Access to Our Collections

5) Deepen Our Financial and Organizational Strength

Our collections help us tell the stories of Nantucket spanning over four centuries. Ensuring their perpetual care and making these collections increasingly accessible are both critical to success.

An increasingly healthy financial base ensures sustainability and the NHA’s ability to be the best possible steward of the island’s history.

We will:

• Foster the growth and development of staff.

• Increase display and interpretation of our collections across more sites.

• Address staff and intern housing needs.

• Care for our collections through on-going conservation assessments and treatments.

• Introduce a “Historic Homes” visitor experience to appeal to a wider audience.

• Deepen and broaden our collections through active acquisition.

• Welcome scholarly and community use of our collections.

• Strive for 100% digitization of our collection.

• Actively publish scholarly works that increase our understanding of Nantucket.

• Leverage technology to provide increased access to our collections.

• Hone our collections by adopting a collection development plan.

• Invest in appropriate safeguards to protect the collections.

We will:

• Nurture and build a volunteer corps.

• Expand exhibit presentations at the Broad Street campus.

• Open a second retail operation in the Thomas Macy Warehouse.

• Increase percentage of revenues derived from the annual fund.

• Grow the endowment and encourage planned gifts.

• Expand earned revenue through expanded rental opportunities and specialty merchandise.

• Invest in new computer systems that will improve effectiveness.

• Expand the use of data analytics and audience evaluation to measure success.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

5

CREATE A WELCOMING CAMPUS CONNECT OUR PROPERTIES “LIKE A STRING OF PEARLS” AND INCREASE PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE SPACES

The Case for a Two-Phased Capital Campaign Phase 1: $2,500,000 Donations and pledges: $1 million (as of April 2019) Phase 2: Incorporate 4 Whalers Lane into the Broad Street campus Objective: Trustees have long debated how the NHA can best optimize its portfolio of properties. These buildings, located throughout Nantucket’s historic town, can be strung together like a “string of pearls,” in a manner that contributes to the public good and allows the NHA to serve its purpose with maximum effectiveness.

Phase 1 will be a measured investment in existing infrastructure over 3 years (2018-2020).

The result will be a 33% increase in publically accessible spaces, which, when coupled with implementation of new programming strategies, will significantly increase the NHA’s ability to deliver on its responsibility as a steward of Nantucket’s history.

Subsequent analysis, plus potential rebalancing of our portfolio, will inform Phase 2 and the proper use of the 4 Whalers Lane property.

Campaign Goals for Phase 1: A. Fine Arts and Collections Initiatives at the Broad Street Campus and Bartholomew Gosnold Collections Center Goal: Renovations and adaptive reuse will create a new fine arts gallery and upgrade existing exhibi­tion spaces. Concurrently protect and care for the Collection at the Bartholomew Gosnold Collections Center by revamping physical and digital infrastructure to create a state-of-the-art collections center.

Budget: $1,000,000 B. Hadwen House and Garden Open to the Public Goal: Create a Historic Homes exhibition center to tell the island’s inspiring stories. Activate the garden to provide additional exhibition space.

Budget: $400,000 C. Expand Family-Learning Opportunities in a Community “Discovery Center” Goal: Convert the former gift shop into a warm and welcoming learning space for our community.

Budget: $100,000 D. Use the Thomas Macy Warehouse to create a “Gateway Center” to the NHA’s properties and other historic sites in order to better fulfill our mission Goal: Repurpose the historic Thomas Macy Warehouse to create a gateway center to introduce visitors to the island’s rich artistic, historical and cultural heritage, while providing a retail experience focused on the NHA. Budget: $1,000,000

6

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

A. Fine Arts and Collections Initiatives at the Broad Street Campus and Bartholomew Gosnold Collections Center Initiative: Convert existing office space to create a new fine arts gallery and concurrently upgrade exhibition spaces and systems to greatly enhance the visitor experience. Protect and care for the collections with an overhaul of the physical and digital infrastructure thus creating a state-of-the-art collections center.

The Peter Foulger Museum’s first floor will revert back to its original intent. A modern gallery will create much-needed exhibition space. This will create the NHA’s third largest premium exhibition space, following the McCausland Gallery and Scrimshaw Gallery.

Adjacent exhibition spaces in the Whaling Museum and Candle Factory will be enhanced and modernized.

Overhaul a 25-year-old climate-control system to ensure museum-quality environmental conditions.

Migrate hundreds of thousands of records to a new integrated database and digitize 100% of the collection.

Importance: The NHA is curtailed in its ability to showcase its fine art collection by the limited amount of premium exhibition space in the current museum configuration. As a result, much of the NHA’s collection remains in storage.

This new gallery will focus on the fine arts and accommodate loans of other collections. Necessary systems upgrades to the Whaling Museum will increase our

ability to display our collections and help us to attract loans of important items relevant to our mission.

Constructed in 1994 to house the collections, this center protects 25,000 artifacts. Climate-control systems and storage infrastructure must be overhauled to ensure the collections are preserved long into the future.

Old digital platforms must be upgraded to provide maximum public access to the collections.

How will this project help the community?

This new fine arts gallery will connect with the McCausland Gallery on the second floor to create a fine arts wing dedicated to showcase the NHA’s collection and attract significant loaned collections in secure climate-controlled spaces, thus enhancing the NHA’s reputation as a world-class venue for exhibitions.

The backbone of the NHA’s mission since 1894 has been to protect and preserve Nantucket’s heritage.

This 15,000 square foot Center holds the largest concentration of art and artifacts on the Island. Other island non-profit organizations also store their collections in this space. The new database will allow all collections (artifacts, manuscripts, books, etc.) to be searched simultaneously and in-depth by scholars and enthusiasts on and off-island.

B. Hadwen House and Garden Opens to the Public Initiative: Create a Historic Homes Exhibition Center to tell the Island’s inspiring stories.

Exterior and interior renovations will allow the NHA to present exhibitions, offer public programs, and provide ADA compliant access. Both first and second floors will feature a variety of changing exhibitions. The basement will be converted into an exhibit space for island artists. The garden will feature sculpture exhibitions.

Importance: Hadwen House is the premier example of Greek Revival architecture on island. Built in 1846 at the peak of Nantucket’s nineteenth-century prosperity, the

house will be publically accessible. In conjunction with the Thomas Macy House across the street, it will form the core of a new Main Street “Historic Homes” experience.

How will this project help the community?

Robust programming and exhibitions at the Hadwen House and Garden will create nine new climate-controlled galleries in 5,000 square feet of exhibition space and allow for greater opportunities for collaborations with peer organizations. The spaces will allow for a focused examination of island-specific stories.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

7

C. Expand Family-Learning Opportunities in a new community “Discovery Center” Initiative: Covert the former gift shop into a warm and welcoming year-round learning space for our community.

Created in 2005, the Discovery Room has provided a warm and welcoming learning space for our community. Demand is high and often this space is overcrowded.

This new indoor and outdoor space will provide for a variety of activities to take place simultaneously.

Importance: The current Discovery Room is too small to meet the demand. By swapping the Discovery Room and the Gift Shop we gain a 100% increase in the size of the room, converting it to a new “Discovery Center.”

This will allow for more year-round programs, adding an outdoor “children’s garden” and easier street-front access.

How will this project help the community?

Increased demand requires more space allocation for children’s activities. The new space will allow for concurrent activities year-round and regardless of the weather. Family focused programming along with space for teens and young adults.

D. Use the Thomas Macy Warehouse to create a “Gateway Center” to the NHA’s historic properties and other Island historical sites Initiative: Create a gateway center to introduce visitors to the island.

This historically significant building will be dedicated to use for NHA programming with occupancy by summer 2020. The first floor will have welcoming displays that orient visitors to Nantucket’s important place in American history and direct them to historical sites throughout the island. The building will also capitalize on its prominent location in a retail corridor and provide opportunities to sell merchandise for the benefit of the NHA. The second floor will introduce visitors to the historical and cultural treasures and resources on the island.

Importance: The Thomas Macy Warehouse, built in 1847 on Nantucket’s waterfront after the 1846 Great Fire, is the finest example of Greek Revival industrial construction on the island, the most historically significant building on Straight Wharf, and is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Complete exterior and interior infrastructural upgrades are required.

How will this project help the community?

A successful renovation will protect this building against the elements for the foreseeable future. It will allow the NHA to work with the community as we present programs, offer retail, and welcome the community and visitors alike on both floors in this unique 3,500 square foot building.

8

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

1894 FOUNDERS SOCIETY

T

hrough this society, the Board of Trustees recognizes the cumulative giving by individuals who assist with the NHA’s annual operating needs. 1894 Founders Society members contribute towards the annual fund, membership, and fundraising events, as well as to exhibitions and collections, scholarship and educational programs, plus other mission-driven initiatives. This generous support is greatly appreciated and welcomed by the community.

For more information about the 1894 Founders Society, email us at 1894founders@nha.org or call (508) 228–1894, ext. 116.

2018 Fiscal Year $50,000 and above President’s Circle Anonymous Anne DeLaney & Chip Carver Connie & Tom Cigarran Amanda Cross Phoebe & Bobby Tudor $25,000 to $49,999 Maureen & Edward Bousa Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth Mark Gottwald Mary Ann & Paul Judy Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael Kovner Helen & Will Little Bonnie & Peter McCausland Franci Neely Diane & Britt Newhouse Laura & Bob Reynolds Janet & Rick Sherlund Harriet & Warren Stephens Merrielou & Ed Symes Kim & Finn Wentworth $10,000 to $24,999 Nancy & Doug Abbey Patricia & Tom Anathan Mary Randolph Ballinger Susan Blount & Richard Bard Ritchie Battle Carol & Harold Baxter Pamela & Max Berry Susan & Bill Boardman Anne Marie & Doug Bratton Laura & Bill Buck Paula & Bob Butler

Jenny & Wylie Collins Jennifer & Robert Diamond Deborah & Bruce Duncan Annabelle & Gregory Fowlkes Nan & Chuck Geschke Carl Jelleme Ann & Charles Johnson Coco & Arie Kopelman Carolyn & Ian MacKenzie Victoria McManus & John McDermott Carla & Jack McDonald Ronay & Richard Menschel Mary & Al Novissimo Ella Prichard Susan & Kennedy Richardson Margaret & John Ruttenberg Molly & Patrick Ryan Bonnie Sacerdote Helen & Chuck Schwab Susan & L. Dennis Shapiro Mary & Don Shockey Kathleen & Robert Stansky Melinda & Paul Sullivan Ann & Peter Taylor Ladd Thorne Jason Tilroe Stephanie & Jay Wilson Leslie Forbes & David Worth $5,000 to $9,999 Susan Akers Laurel & Clifford Asness Lesley Blanchard Jonathan Blum Patricia Nilles & Hunter Boll Donald Burns Christy & Bill Camp

William J. Charlton Olivia & Felix Charney Mary & Marvin Davidson Lucy & Nat Day John DeCiccio Elizabeth Miller & James Dinan Jennifer & Stephen Dolente Ana & Michael Ericksen Karyn Frist Shelley & Graham Goldsmith Maureen & Jim Hackett Barbara & Ed Hajim Kaaren & Charles Hale Julia & John Hilton Michelle & Tucker Holland Barbara & Amos Hostetter Wendy Hubbell Wendy & Randy Hudson Susanne & Zenas Hutcheson Daintry & Reb Jensen Harvey Jones Diane Pitt & Mitch Karlin Jill & Stephen Karp Diane & Art Kelly Sharon & Frank Lorenzo Karen & Malcolm MacNab Miriam Mandell Ashley & Jeff McDermott Bobbi McPeak Ann & Craig Muhlhauser Sarah & Jeff Newton Carter & Chris Norton Shira & Brad Paul Liz & Jeff Peek Sheila & Richard Riggs Maria & George Roach Sharon & Frank Robinson

Robin & Mark Rubenstein Linda Saligman Kathy & John Salmanowitz Marla & Terry Sanford Denise & Andrew Saul Burwell & Chip Schorr Garrett Thornburg Louise Turner Liz & Geoff Verney Karen & Chris Watkins $3,000 to $4,999 Janet & Sam Bailey Liz McDermott & Ben Barnes Kay & Peter Bernon Marianna & Chris Brewster Christy Brown Laurie & Bob Champion Kathy & H. Crowell Freeman Page & Arthur Gosnell Sabine & Richard Griffin Gloria & Jeffrey Holtman Ann & Johnny Johnson Kathleen & Ken Kies Diane & David Lilly Mary & Bob McCann Judy & Stephan Newhouse Kathy & Angelo Orciuoli Kathryn & Roger Penske Ann & Chris Quick Delia & James Russell Rhonda & Bruce Shear Lorraine Snell Rev. Georgia Ann Snell Carolyn Thayer & Steve Tuzik Alisa & Alastair Wood Robert Young

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

9

1

NEW ACQUISITIONS and Conservation Projects

T

he NHA has recently acquired two paintings at auction through the generosity of the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association. The first is a view of the beach at ’Sconset by George Inness.

It was painted during the same 1883 visit to the island where this important American artist painted Back of Nichols’ Barn, ’Sconset, which is one of the NHA’s most prized paintings and was a gift of the Friends in 2011.

This new picture is an atmospheric portrayal of the light effects created by a low sun over ocean and beach, and documents the strong impression Nantucket’s landscape and light made on the artist. As he wrote to his wife from Nantucket, “I have just been out to see the setting of the sun, strolling up the road and studying the solemn tones of the passing daylight. There is something peculiarly impressive in the effects of the far-stretching distance, the weather-worn gray of the buildings, and the general sense of solitariness which quite suits my present mood. I find more and more to interest me, and shall no doubt find my stay here profitable.”

The second painting given by the Friends is a large canvas of Sankaty Head Lighthouse, painted during the winter of 1883-84 by William Ferdinand Macy. Macy painted extensively on Cape Cod and Nantucket, creating landscapes that were popular with summer visitors.

His work is important to the NHA because it captures much of the rural and natural atmosphere that made the island appealing to holidaymakers after the end of island

10

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

2

whaling. This painting is unusually large for Macy’s work, measuring 38 1/4 by 72 3/8 inches. We expect it to be a showstopper in the NHA’s galleries.

On the conservation front, the NHA recently had its needlework picture of a lady fishing, stitched by Susan Colesworthy in 1765, remounted and reframed for exhibition. This is one of the most important textile pieces in the collection, and it has been in the NHA’s care since 1937, when it was bequeathed by the association’s first curator, Susan E. Brock.

The NHA is conserving two nineteenth-century French whaling prints by Ambroise Louis Garneray, Garneray, a 19th C Quaker dress, and an important ambrotype of young Helen Marshall, who was born during the course of one of her father’s whaling voyages and spent her formative years at sea.

3

4

The NHA continues to collect significant examples of whalemen’s scrimshaw. Thanks to a generous gift from H. L. Brown Jr. Family Foundation, made in memory of Lucy Fowlkes Breed and her love of Nantucket, the NHA was recently been able to purchase an engraved tooth dated 1834 depicting the whaler Henry Astor. The tooth is the work of Reuben F. Starbuck (1810– ca. 1853), first mate of the Henry Astor on its 1831–35 voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Although the tooth is worn from age, it is a rare example of scrimshaw that is both dated and signed by the artist.

Nantucketer Reuben Starbuck went whaling in his youth. He became first mate of the Henry Astor at age 21 and captain of the President at age 24. He later commanded the Daniel Webster and the Tyleston. He was lost at sea about 1853.

The Henry Astor was built as a trading vessel in 1820 and made two whaling voyages out of Hudson, New York, in the 1830s before making two more out of Nantucket in the 1840s. In 1849, the vessel carried the members of the Henry Astor and Sherburne mining companies from Nantucket to the California Gold Rush. The tooth depicts the Henry Astor hove-to with boats in the water hunting whales. A portrait of the U.S. Frigate Constitution is engraved on the other side of the tooth.

Starbuck gave the tooth to George Barnard, a young crewman aboard the Henry Astor’s 1831–35 voyage. It then descended in his family until its recent purchase by the NHA. The NHA is also pleased to have recently acquired an umbrella with whalebone handle inscribed “Charles Veeder 1843.” Charles Veeder (1809–78) was a Nantucket whaling captain, and the umbrella is a gift from Dolly Vinal, one of his descendants. The bone handle bearing Veeder’s name may once have been the grip of a cane and was later reused on this umbrella. Either way, the piece complements other Veeder family items already in the NHA collection, including oil portraits of Charles and of his wife Susan, as well as the illustrated journal Susan kept during the 1848–53 voyage of the Nauticon, when she and her sons joined Charles on a whaling voyage to the Pacific. The Veeders’ story will be the subject of the book A Thousand Leagues of Blue by Betsy Tyler, to be published by the NHA this fall.

5

1. Sankaty Light William Ferdinand Macy (1845-1913) GIFT OF THE FRIENDS OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, 2018.0034.001

2. Siasconset Beach, 1883 George Inness (1825-1894) GIFT OF THE FRIENDS OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, 2018.0034.002

3. Henry Astor Scrimshaw, 1834 Reuben F. Starbuck (1810-ca. 1853) GIFT OF THE H. L. BROWN JR. FAMILY FOUNDATION, 2019.0001.00

4. Umbrella with Whale-Bone Handle, 1843 GIFT OF DOLLY VINAL.,2018.0029.001

5. Ambrotype of Young Helen Marshall (1851-1939) GIFT OF MARSHA HALL BROWN, IN HONOR OF FLORENCE FARRIER HALL, RL2012.10

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

11

GETTING IN TOUCH with Nantucket History

By Amelia Holmes, Associate Director, Research Library

T

he NHA has recently acquired a nineteenth-century pamphlet with an unexpected connection to the island. The Ninth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind to the Corporation, 1841, is a rote report documenting the previous year’s activities at the oldest school for the blind in the United States; however, tipped in at the back of the volume is a tactile map of Nantucket. Although not readily apparent, the map’s presence illustrates Nantucket’s prosperity during the island’s whaling heyday.

When Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe first opened the school in 1832, it was commonly believed people with low vision or blindness did not need to read because they could be read to by sighted individuals. Howe believed in literacy as an educational right, and set out to develop a library for his students. Disappointed with the dearth of available books, he improved upon the tactile printing process, modifying the type so it was easier and more economical to print. Howe then commissioned a printer, Stephen Preston Ruggles, to design a printing press that could produce books using what was known as Boston Line Type.

Although Louis Braille was developing what would become a universal writing system for the blind—that subsequently became synonymous with his name—it was unknown to Howe at the time, and his Boston Line Type would remain the standard in the United States for several decades.

In an effort to keep school funds separate from those used to develop the print shop, Dr. Howe went to Nantucket and New Bedford to fundraise. As both were prosperous whaling towns, it’s easy to understand his logic.

Between both towns, he was able to raise $15,000, which allowed Ruggles to build the press he designed and Howe to establish a printing program at the school. The first book printed in Boston Line Type, Acts of the Apostles, 1835, was dedicated to the inhabitants of Nantucket and New Bedford.

12

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

Printed in Boston Line Type, this tactile map of Nantucket was first printed in 1838. NHA COLLECTIONS RB NAN 373.744 P41N 1841

Howe also wanted his students to learn geography: in 1837, the school printed Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind. Although crude tactile atlases had been printed, they required the assistance of a sighted person to read them; blind students could read Atlas of the United States entirely on their own. The book contained 24 state maps, each accompanied by a description, and were entirely printed in Boston Line Type. Of the 50 atlases that were printed, only five known copies survive today.

The Boston Line Type map of Nantucket first appears in the school’s sixth annual report, which describes its 1837 activities. It’s curious that the shop chose to print a map of Nantucket when no other tactile local maps seem to exist from that time period. It’s also interesting to note that the map continued to appear in succeeding annual reports, including the 1841 edition acquired by the NHA. Unfortunately, the rationale behind the decisions was never documented. It’s possible that the lasting impact of Nantucket’s contribution to Perkins’s printing shop, and thereby, the development of Boston Line Type, is what led to the map’s creation.

DIGITAL INITIATIVES

B

y ramping up the research library’s internship program to host graduate-level students yearround, we are able to continue working toward its goal of digitizing 100 percent of its unique collections.

Building off of past funding from the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee and recent support from Connie and Tom Cigarran, all logbooks acquired within the past decade have been digitized and are now available online through the manuscript collections catalog. Moving forward, logbooks will be prioritized for digitization based on several factors, including researcher need.

Now that staff are familiar with and have developed workflows for the scanner, they have expanded their efforts beyond ships logs and journals. Of particular historical interest are the journals of prominent Quaker merchant and early island historian Obed Macy (1762– 1844). Across six volumes compiled between 1799 and 1844, the “worthy Obed”—as Herman Melville refers to him in Moby-Dick—recorded quotidian details of island life alongside personal opinions on national and international events. Digitized this spring in response to a researcher request, the six volumes are now freely available to the public through the NHA’s collections catalog.

In an effort to bring its award-winning publication to a wider audience, the NHA is also digitizing back issues of Historic Nantucket and its predecessor, Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association. At the time of writing, issues from 1990 through to the present are available online through the NHA’s website.

Finally, the library is digitizing its collection of photo albums and Grace Brown Gardner’s scrapbooks.

In its holdings, the Research Library has more than 100 family photo albums, documenting island life through both formal portraits and everyday snapshots. Staff have previously digitized selections of images from the

Macy’s first journal –titled, “A Journal of the most Remarkable events kept

by Obed Macy” –begins. “As there is nothing remarkable taken place to-day I shall only make some observations of the time past”.

NHA COLLECTIONS MS96 MACY FAMILY PAPERS, JOURNAL

albums, but with the NHA’s new planetary scanner, they can now take a holistic, preservation-oriented approach to digitizing the volumes.

Former NHA Vice President Grace Brown Gardner was an avid scrapbooker, and her 84 scrapbooks reside in the Research Library. A rich resource for those interested in local history, the scrapbooks contain a wealth of clippings on topics such as island churches, farming, people, and local organizations. Both the digitized scrapbooks and photo albums are available to the public through the NHA’s collections catalog.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

13

NHA PUBLICATIONS

By Barbara Ann White

Would You Want to Sail on a Nantucket Whaling Ship?

ip Essex.

Nantucket Want to Sail on a

Peter Cook

Nantucket you’ve grown f a busy whaling port. Now ms and join the crew of the

Grisly Tasks Yo u’d Rather Not Do

ross!

m Experts:

carve decorative whale teeth. you set sail — you don’t want freezing Arctic. e in handy if you’re really hungry! of different whale species — some aluable than others.

Would You Ship? g n i l a Wh

You Wouldn’t Want to Sail on a 19th-Century Whaling Ship!

Whaling Ship!

Written by

Peter Cook

By Peter Cook Illustrated by David Antram Sponsored by the Peter M. Sacerdote Family Distributed free to Nantucket students

Illustrated by

bus

WATTS

book

David Antram

This beautifully illustrated book celebrates the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth and the departure of the Essex from Nantucket. The book describes the life of a 14-year-old boy from Nantucket who in 1819 joins the crew of a whaling ship, experiencing trips to the Pacific, hunting whales, carving scrimshaw, being stove by a whale, and cannibalism.

AVAILABLE JULY 2019 Becoming Hanna: My Greater Light on Nantucket

By Beverly Hall Sponsored by Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan In advance of publication of the hardcover book in 2020, this primer will whet the appetite of all who admire Gertrude and Hanna Monaghan and their house, Greater Light, as Beverly Hall describes her passion for celebrating the lives of these remarkable sisters.

14

PREORDER THESE TWO BOOKS NOW

Biography of Anna Gardner

AVAILABLE JUNE 2019

ant to Sail on a

AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2019

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

Sponsored by the Theodore Cross Family Charitable Foundation A 200-page illustrated hardcover book A lifelong advocate of equality in all aspects of American society, Anna Gardner, who was born into a Quaker family on Nantucket in 1816, fought for equal rights for black people and for women. Even as a teen, Anna was involved in the abolition movement and became a teacher to black students on the island.

She was instrumental in the battle to integrate the Nantucket public schools after her student, Eunice Ross, was denied admission to the public high school.

Her story has been overshadowed by the more celebrated of her contemporaries. Yet it was people like Gardner who were willing to put their principles into action who made change possible at the ground level.

A Thousand Leagues of Blue: The Whaling Voyages of Susan and Charles Veeder of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts

By Betsy Tyler Heavily illustrated with images from the NHA collection, this 250-page book will have a deluxe, sponsored limited edition.

Susan and Bill Boardman invite you to join them in co-sponsoring this publication.

A Thousand Leagues of Blue is a narrative nonfiction account of the lives and voyages of a “typical” Nantucket maritime family in the nineteenth century, a family who appeared not unlike their neighbors: father at sea, mother and children at home, Pacific seashells on the mantel. But the previously unknown adventures of Susan and Charles Veeder—as revealed in contemporary journals and documents—are extraordinary. Their true story embraces the peculiarities and challenges of the whaling industry of their island home. It is a tale of a family and an island struggling with tradition and reinvention.

THANK YOU

The Board of Trustees thanks these scrimshaw enthusiasts for their leadership.

SCRIMSHAW ON NANTUCKET

Benefactors

By Stuart M. Frank

Max and Pamela Berry Ladd and Sigrid Thorne

A large hardcover book with 600 photographs by Jeff Allen.

Patrons

As Nantucket is unique, so too is the Nantucket Historical Association’s scrimshaw collection. Scrimshaw is an occupational folk art that has an important place in American history.

Scrimshaw typically refers to engraved or carved items made by whalers from bones and teeth of sperm whales, baleen from other whales, and walrus tusks. Pelagic sperm whaling origiScrimshaw on Nantucket The Collection of the Nantucket Historical Association nated with Nantucketers in the early eighteenth century; the making of Stuart M. Frank scrimshaw eventually followed. Simply, when a whale was taken for its oil, the teeth, bones, and occasionally some of the baleen were distributed among the ship’s crew to create objects—practical and decorative—ranging from swifts and canes to toys and pie crimpers (jagging wheels) and engraved pictures on whale teeth and walrus tusks, made for themselves, their shipmates, and their families back home, while passing the time on the often years-long whaling voyages.

I can think of no better author to write a book about the scrimshaw collection and related artifacts than Dr. Stuart M. Frank. Stuart is highly regarded as one of the foremost authorities in the world concerning this interesting field. Over many years, he has held several distinguished positions, notably as Executive Director of the Kendall Whaling Museum, Senior Curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Founder and Director of the Scrimshaw Forensics® Laboratory, and a Research Fellow at the NHA since 2012. He has authored many articles, monographs, and books on scrimshaw. I believe that Scrimshaw on Nantucket will become a “bible” for scholars, dealers, collectors, and others interested in scrimshaw wherever they live. Enjoy reading it!

By Max N. Berry, Friends of the NHA

SUPPORT THESE NHA PUBLICATIONS Contact Lexi Norton at lexi@nha.org for more information.

Jennifer and Jonathan Blum Christy and Bill Camp Kelly Williams and Andrew Forsyth Michael Gerstein Carolyn and Ian MacKenzie Susan and Kennedy Richardson Robin and Mark Rubenstein Subscribers Mary Randolph Ballinger Karyn McLaughlin Frist Sam Lehrman Gail and Rafael Osona John Sylvia Skinner Auctioneers and Appraisers Stephanie and Jay Wilson Supporters Patricia and Tom Anathan Dr. Donald and Hon. Mary Boger Anne Marie and Doug Bratton Laurie and Bob Champion Ryan Cooper Janie and Jerry Dauterive Robyn and John Davis John M. DeCiccio Josh Eldred Art Gertel Page and Arthur Gosnell Janice and Alan Granby Susan Zises Green Andrew Jacobsen Mr. and Mrs. Arie L. Kopelman Parke Madden Pam and Rich Merriman John F. Rinaldi Ellen and Ken Roman Cordelia and James Russell, in honor of Llewellyn Howland III Bonnie J. Sacerdote Roger T. Servison Janet and Rick Sherlund Merrilou and Ned Symes Conrad Tilroe Jason Tilroe Mrs. Vardeman and Hon. Paul Vardeman Kim and Finn Wentworth Landis and Brace Young Robert A. Young Lydia Zinzi Kennelley Deadline for listing: 5/10/19

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

15

YOUTH MENTORSHIP PROGRAM UPDATE

T

he NHA piloted a program last year to engage with on-island high school students. Proof-of-concept has led to an eight-week wintertime immersion program as students work in a “real-world” work environment. The program comprised a mix of eleven 10th and 11th grade students, who have diverse cultural backgrounds and interests. Over the course of the program, students engaged with staff in various departments and gained insights into how the organization functions. The program is designed to enhance public speaking, research, writing, and teamwork skills. This knowledge was be put to the test as their final project was to build a display at the high school.

The NHA is grateful for the generous support by an anonymous donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket, a grant from the ReMain Nantucket Fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket, and by a gift from Suzanne Clary, made in memory of Elizabeth “Libby” Oldham, which makes this program possible.

Above: Nantucket High School student mentees together for their first meeting at the NHA with their parents and staff in March

16

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

“WE ALL SPEAK MOBY-DICK”

Multilingual Reading Event, February 2019

W

inter on Nantucket has traditionally been referred to as the quiet season. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we hosted a first-of-its-kind multicultural community reading, We All Speak Moby-Dick, with over 300 people in attendance.

What better way to celebrate Melville than bringing together the diverse island population in the tradition of reading Moby-Dick aloud. Selected chapters were read simultaneously in six different languages in galleries around the museum, with readers of all ages. Activities and a reading for small children and performances by Bulgarian and Irish dance groups capped the event.

The afternoon program would not have been complete without Nantucket’s own Melville enthusiasts, Nat Philbrick and John Shea, who set the tone by reading aloud the first and last chapters. Readings in Russian, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, and American Sign Language will be expanded upon next year, when the NHA translates an abridged version of Moby-Dick into six other languages (Serbian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Polish, Nepalese, and Gaelic).

We hope this will become a winter tradition, as the reading’s true purpose is to provide a place where we can all come together in the dead of winter, under one roof and as a community.

NE W

DISCOVERY CENTER

Expands Commitment to Education and Community Detailed model of Nantucket Railroad, previously on display in the McCausland Gallery

S

ince opening in 2005, the Discovery Room at the Whaling Museum has welcomed tens of thousands of children and families. In this time, it has blossomed into a center of informal learning for our younger visitors as they explore and discover Nantucket’s rich history.

This winter, former NHA President Arie L. Kopelman and Mary Emery Lacoursiere, Peter M. & Bonnie J. Sacerdote Chair of Education and Community Relations, reimagined this space, holding fast to the core philosophy and principles of the original.

The new Discovery Center, now located in the former Museum Shop with a prominent street-facing presence, is much larger than the former location.

This reflects the NHA’s commitment to education and the community, as noted in the first tenet of the Strategic Plan. The space has both indoor and outdoor components. Indoors, the increased size will allow for different learning and activity zones. This includes the reintroduction of the 25-foot long and masterfully detailed Nantucket Railroad model, spaces for interactive and independent play, a children’s reading zone, crafts and building areas, and importantly a space for teens and our high school interns to study, do homework, or just get together.

The outdoor space in the adjacent and recently landscaped “pocket park” will provide children’s activities from Memorial Day through Columbus Day, thanks to support from the Nantucket Garden Club and Nantucket Golf Club Foundation. We suspect kids will have lots of fun climbing into boats, playing, and hamming it up with a 20-foot inflatable whale. The popular year-round and school vacation programs will continue unabated as the impetus to implement family-oriented learning opportunities is embraced around the campus. For example, look for interactive games and activitie at the Old Mill and Oldest House, where Karl Wietzel, the new historic sites manager, has a lot in store for visitors.

Right: Illustrated alphabet from the collection, Tony Sarg, 1945. These letters will be on display in the new Discovery Center for children to enjoy.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

17

COMMEMORATING THE 360TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST CONTACT

I

n 2019, to commemorate the 360th anniversary of the first contact on Nantucket between the indigenous peoples and English settlers, the NHA plans to revive and build on groundbreaking research conducted by archeologist Dr. Elizabeth A. Little on Nantucket in the 1980s. The NHA plans to develop the following outreach programs: 1) Community awareness programs on the lives of indigenous peoples on the island pre-and-postEnglish settlement.

2) Physical and online access to the NHA’s Indigenous Peoples archeology collection.

3) Public indoor and outdoor interactive exhibits and displays with interpretive materials.

This summer, an initial roll-out will be based at the Oldest House property. The Jethro Coffin House was built in 1686 as a wedding gift for Jethro Coffin (1663–1727) and Mary Gardner (1670–1767) and is believed to be the oldest residence on Nantucket still on its original site. Mary’s father, John Gardner, served as a translator with Nantucket’s Wampanoag sachems (leaders).

Jethro’s grandfather, Tristram Coffin, was one of the

18

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

first English settlers on Nantucket in 1659 and is listed as a witness on Thomas Mayhew’s 1659 “Indian deed,” which he signed over to Coffin and other settlers.

The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968. Today, it stands as a monument to the lives of the island’s earliest English settlers and offers visitors a glimpse of daily life on Nantucket in the seventeenth century.

The NHA is working with Plimoth Plantation to bring to life stories of both the indigenous peoples and the first English settlers. An advisory committee will help explore opportunities to create exhibits and programs to examine the many ways in which the two cultures lived and interacted, including sustenance and shelter, trade and transport, property ownership and legal exchange, language and communication.

Historic houses have traditionally focused inward, on the home and hearth of those who built and/or lived within the walls. The Oldest House as it stands is similar in that it tells only a small part of the story of Nantucket’s founding. Using the landscape beyond the traditional English settlement structure, the NHA intends to shed new light on the cultural heritage of the Wampanoag Tribe and its relation to Nantucket’s history.

The landscape surrounding the Oldest House may become home to exhibits that include the design, planting, and care of a traditional Wampanoag garden; the construction of a wetu (a style of Wampanoag traditional house) and a mishoon (a dug-out canoe), which the indigenous people used for transportation; and fishing and hunting. Plimoth Plantation plans to build an ocean-going mishoon with hopes of rowing it to Nantucket, or the “far away island” in Algonquian language, next year.

Exhibits may include examples of how the business of whaling evolved on the island and forever changed the relationship between the Wampanoag and the growing non-indigenous communities. Cross-cultural exhibits on the use of shared spaces and resources among the

groups will serve as an opportunity to examine trade and exchange, property ownership and legal exchange, and language and communication.

By the time the English arrived in 1659, the Wampanoag had divided the island into sections, each headed by a sachem (leader) of a band (group of people within the same tribe), that encompassed much of the land area.

Nantucket’s sachems were loosely aligned to present a united front against the new arrivals. However, there was still a cultural division between the groups based on geographical location on the island; the easterners were focused on the lands in their possession, lands known to be the finest on the island; the westerners were closest to the best waters for drift whaling.

The addition of a third group, the English, would forever change the cultural landscape of Nantucket and help shape the process of the new settlement.

The NHA’s collections include Dr. Elizabeth A. Little’s published materials on Nantucket’s original indigenous inhabitants, in addition to artifacts and deeds. Dr. Little (1926-2003) was an accomplished physicist, archaeologist, and anthropologist who devoted over 30 years of her life to the advancement and dissemination of scholarly research on Nantucket’s indigenous and colonial populations. From 1971 to 1999, she collected and analyzed Nantucket Island data and self-published more than 30 manuscripts on behalf of the NHA. These manuscripts divulged complex details about the life of indigenous peoples and colonial interactions from the pre-contact period through the Indian sickness period of 1763-64. Little’s research canvassed topics such as the indigenous peoples’ diet, settlement patterns, community centers, architecture, whaling, and sachems of note.

The archaeology collection forms one of the NHA’s largest artifact groups, estimated to contain about 5,000 items. The objects are divided broadly into four groups: 1) The largest contains lithic spear and arrow points made by the indigenous peoples who inhabited Nantucket from about 10,000 BCE to the eighteenth century. There are perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 thousand items in this category, and they document hunting practices and tool-making materials spanning from thousands of years before European settlement into the postcontact period. 2) The next group of objects contains indigenous peoples’ larder stone tools, including ax heads, mallets, fishing weights and mortars and pestles. There are about 200 to 300 of these items in the collection. 3) The third group contains animal bones and sea shells excavated at indigenous dwelling and hunting sites across the island. The items in this group number perhaps five hundred. 4) The last group holds between 1,000 to 2,000 historicperiod ceramic and glass fragments excavated at colonial English and early American sites on the island.

Deed to Coatue, 1665/1668/1677 Ink and wax on vellum; 7 9/16 x 6 in.

NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION COLLECTION GIFT OF EUNICE S. BARNEY SWAIN (MS. A17 VOL.1)

A blue-ribbon advisory group will help ensure the success of the planning and implementation: Cormac Collier, President and CEO, Nantucket Conservation Foundation Sarah A. Little, Ph.D. (daughter of Dr. Elizabeth A. Little), Writer, Wellesley, MA Sharon Lorenzo, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School Kathryn L. Ness, Ph.D., Freelance Museum and Education Consultant Jonathan Perry, Aquinnah Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Mary Lynne Rainey, Principal Senior Archaeologist, Richard Grubb & Associates Sarah W. Rose, Deputy Director, Plimoth Plantation

PROGRAMS

Symposium: First Contact: Indigenous Peoples and The First English Settlers July 19 | Quaker Meeting House Educational Programs with Plimoth Plantation July 19 & August 16 | Oldest House

Stephen Silliman, Department Chair, Professor of Anthropology, UMass Boston Kelly Williams, President, NHA Board of Trustees

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

19

EX N EW HI BI T

GOSNELL HALL AND CANDLE FACTORY: Major Exhibition Upgrades

I

n a continuing effort to excel at exhibition presentation and storytelling, Peggi Godwin and Maria Grause, Visitor Services Coordinators, are working with our great interpretive staff to reconceive our programming.

In Gosnell Hall, an updated and condensed “whale hunt” presentation will take place with greater frequency and amid the new exhibits. Visitors will experience a vivid account of life at sea and the drama of the whale hunt with twice the frequency as before. In the new mini-theater in the Candle Factory, the Essex Gam will be presented more often, along with two films, Nantucket by Ric Burns and The Bones of History by John Stanton. New daily Spotlight Tours will cover a variety of subjects, such as art scrimshaw, Wampanoag history, the Candle Factory operation, and the Great Fire of 1846. New audio tours will be available for the Smithsonian’s Roby Collection exhibition and Highlights of Nantucket exhibit. Hadwen House will have its own unique program, launching June 28th.

Dramatic transformations in Gosnell Hall and the Candle Factory are thanks to Ed Rudd, artist and Director of Properties, and his team. He curated the spaces with exciting new presentations that will definitely

20

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

impress. The sheer number of artifacts on display is testament to the depth of the NHA’s collection. A lifesized reproduction of a bark was built by Joe Bedell and Karl Phillips, and now floats under the whale skeleton.

By Memorial Day, an eight-foot model of the bark Edward Cary will arrive thanks to the support of Annabelle Fowlkes. Mary and Al Novissimo continue their digital mastery with newly developed interactives designed for all ages. Author Phillip Hoare curated Neptune’s Grotto (see article) in the lower level of the Candle Factory and adjacent to the new Discovery Center.

In the Nantucket Corner gallery, guest curator Dan Elias mounts an exhibit that plays off the same theme of The Winter Show. Nantucket and The World looks at the advent of long-voyage whaling in late eighteenth-century and the durable networks of friendships and trading relations built across the world. Dan sifted through the NHA’s collections to highlight the international networks created by the “active and disciplined” men and women of Nantucket. Nantucket and The World will bring together objects and ideas from the North and South Pacific whaling grounds, Asia, Africa, Europe, and across the United States to display the cosmopolitan nature of Nantucketers’ character and history.

W T N E H I BI EX Curated by Anne Classen Knutson, Ph.D.

June 15 Inaugural Exhibition opens in the new Williams-Forsyth Gallery

TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN ART on Nantucket Pairings from the NHA and Private Collections

T

wo Hundred Years of American Art on Nantucket will open in the new Williams-Forsyth Gallery on June 15th. The exhibition of approximately thirty pieces will be a survey of paintings and mixed media works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Works will be selected from the permanent collection of the NHA and paired with pieces from public and private collections on the island. Some of these paintings have not been seen by the public in decades. The Board wishes to thank Steve Langer, Ben Simons, Bobby Fraizer and John Sylvia for their assistance in reviewing the artwork selected for the exhibition.

Organized chronologically and thematically, the exhibition will feature first-rate American art and will reveal new stories about many beloved artists, including Wendell Macy, George Inness, Dennis Miller Bunker, Eastman Johnson, and Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin, who are among those highlighted for the nineteenth century. Twentieth-century artists will include Anne Ramsdell Congdon, Emily Hoffmeier, Richard Hayley Lever, Elizabeth Saltonstall, and Philip Hicken.

Anne Classen Knutson is an independent curator and has been a summer resident of Nantucket for thirty years. An American art scholar, Knutson curated a major traveling show in 2017 titled World War I and American Art. Other exhibitions curated by her include Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic and Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People.

MEMBERS MORNING TOUR Wednesday, July 24 | Whaling Museum

FINE ARTS SYMPOSIUM with presentations by Dan Elias, Anne Knutsen and Virginia Mecklenburg Tuesday, August 13 in the morning

Back of Nichols’ Barn, ‘Sconset, 1883 George Inness (1825-94), Oil on Board; 18 1/2 x 24 1/2 in.

GIFT OF THE FRIENDS OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM THE MAX AND HEIDI BERRY ACQUISITION FUND AND THE NHA ACQUISITION FUND, 2011.6.1

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

21

EX N EW HI BI T

MODERN AMERICAN REALISM Highlights from the Sara Roby Foundation Collection A Traveling Exhibition from The Smithsonian American Art Museum Underwritten by Bonnie and Peter McCausland and The Sara Roby Foundation

Memorial Day – Columbus Day Member Opening: Thursday, May 23

Championing realism in the 1950s was a daring and defiant act. Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem de Kooning, and others dubbed “abstract expressionists” were the art stars of the day. Flinging and pouring paint, they created huge canvases that bore little resemblance to the natural world. Into this milieu came Sara Roby, an heiress and painter who refused to be bound by current fads. Roby was concerned that figurative art was being eclipsed, so she established a foundation to collect art that reflected the classic principles of form and design that she had learned as an art student, first in Philadelphia and later with Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League in New York. But Roby and her advisors recognized that the beauty and spirituality, as well as the tensions, of modern life allowed for many kinds of realism. They bought paintings by Edward Hopper and Robert Vickrey that probe the angst and psychological dislocation associated with existential thought in the 1950s. Leavening these unsettling images are canvases by Isabel Bishop and Phillip Evergood, whose empathy and sense of social responsibility had emerged during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Formed in the mid 1950s, the collection captures both the optimism and the apprehension of the years following World War II. Many of the works are poignant, others whimsical. Still others challenge us to decipher meaning imbedded in difficult, sometimes enigmatic

22

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

Sleeping Child , 1961, Will Barnet (1911-2012) Oil on Canvas; 62 x 38 in.

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM, GIFT OF THE SARA ROBY FOUNDATION, 1986.6.1 © 2019 WILL BARNET TRUST / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY

scenes. The collection is a reflection of the multivalent realities of contemporary life, of human emotion at its most elemental and universal.

Modern American Realism: Highlights from the Sara Roby Foundation Collection was organized by The Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from the Sara Roby Foundation. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go. —Virginia Mecklenburg, Chief Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum

FRIENDS OF THE NHA LECTURE July 17 | Whaling Museum Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director at The Smithsonian American Art Museum

About Sara Roby

SARA BARNES ROBY was a

Artist Sara Roby lived on Orange Street and then Liberty Street until her passing 30 years ago. She was a strong supporter of many local arts and cultural organizations through the mid and late twentieth century. In addition, she was an avid collector and amassed a remarkable collection of early-and-mid-twentieth century American artists. As early as 1953, she supported artists both on island and off through the purchase and exhibition of their work. Her collection was given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in 1986.

Sara Mary Barnes Roby was granddaughter of Henry Fownes, creator of Oakmont Country Club golf course and daughter of John Barnes, “FirstFounder” of Pine Valley Golf Club. He owned two companies in Pennsylvania and so Sara inherited chairperson positions at both. She attended Vassar for a period and then studied art in New York, with a studio next to Salvador Dali at Carnegie Hall. On Nantucket she excelled at golf and was a member at Sankaty Head Golf Club. Her painting skills were only surpassed by her eye for collecting.

Now members have an opportunity to view this collection, which has been expertly curated by Virginia Mecklenburg, Chief Curator at SAAM. We hope this exhibition sets a precedent and fellow collectors will sharing their exemplary collections with the public under the auspices of the NHA. Joseph Roby, Sara’s son, is honorary chair along with Bonnie and Peter McCausland.

Advisory Committee Chairs are NHA President Kelly Williams and her husband Andrew Forsyth, and past-trustee Jason Tilroe, who also serve as SAAM commissioners. The Board of Trustees thanks Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director, and Virginia Mecklenburg, Chief Curator at SAAM for facilitating this exhibition and allowing it to come home to Nantucket.

summer resident of Nantucket during the 1960s,’70s, and ‘80s.

She owned the beautiful house with the pillared entrance on the left of Orange Street with spectacular views of Monomoy and the harbor. She was involved with all aspects of the arts and was among the first to fund and support the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, the newly formed community theater, in the late ’50s and early ’60s. She was also a painter, had her own studio, and was an active member of the Artists’ Association of Nantucket as well as the Atheneum. She had a summer retreat in Dionis, which she called her “shack.”

My late husband John was her contractor and caretaker for many years. We came to know Sara very well. She arranged several birthday parties for our son there, as she did for many other Nantucket children. She was generous, fun and “difficult”— a true grande dame of that time!

She enjoyed hosting many parties during her summer stays on Nantucket.

— Elizabeth Gilbert, longtime NHA member, museum interpreter, and Nantucket resident.

Honorary Chairs: Bonnie and Peter McCausland Tracy and Joe Roby Advisory Committee Chairs: Kelly Williams and Andrew Forsyth Jason Tilroe

”Self Portrait” painted by Sara Roby on Nantucket

Artist’s Table, 1931, Isobel Bishop (1902-1988) Oil on Canvas; 14 5/8 x 17 1/2 in. SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM,

SAAM Curator: Virginia M. Mecklenberg

GIFT OF THE SARA ROBY FOUNDATION, 1986.6.6

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

23

EX N EW HI BI T

THE ART OF SEWARD JOHNSON A Collaboration Between the Artists Association of Nantucket and the NHA Guest curator Paula Stoeke of The Seward Johnson Atelier Daffodil Day through Columbus Day, Nantucket will celebrate the artwork of summer resident Seward Johnson, whose lifelike bronze sculptures have been exhibited internationally for decades. Coinciding with the “soft” opening in April, the sculptor will receive a lifetime achievement award for his impressive impact on the landscape of public art. The exhibition of Johnson’s remarkable lifesized sculptures will be sure to turn heads and make for great photo ops! Sculptures will be located at the Whaling Museum, Hadwen House, and, of course, the Cecilia Joyce and Seward Johnson Gallery. Guest curator Paula Stoeke of The Seward Johnson Atelier has selected pieces from Johnson’s series inspired by the Impressionist masterpieces, as well as lifelike bronzes that highlight the activities of everyday life. Seward Johnson is frequently noted in the media as “America’s most popular sculptor,” and we proudly claim him as our own.

24

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

OPENING APRIL 26 To become familiar with the artist, visit www.sewardjohnsonatelier.org and go to Collections

Above: Seward Johnson sculpts Einstein Riding a Bicycle © 2019, The Seward Johnson Atelier, Inc. PHOTO BY: KEEP LIFE IN BALANCE © 2019, THE SEWARD JOHNSON ATELIER, INC., PHOTO BY DAVID STEELE

W T N E H I BI EX

STRANGERS TO NEIGHBORS: Jewish Life on Nantucket Exhibition produced by Esta-Lee Stone, Barbara Wolinsky, and Lisa Lazarus The new Whitney Gallery exhibit opening, this June at the Research Library on Fair Street, will mark a unique partnership between the Nantucket Historical Association and Congregation Shirat HaYam as it celebrates its 36th anniversary of the Congregation on Nantucket. The exhibit will tell the history of the Congregation, as well as the Jewish community’s commercial life, its religious life, its educational life, and its efforts to support the larger Nantucket community as a whole. In so doing, it will be a way to recognize and celebrate the island’s varied population — a significant interest of both organizations.

In describing the story of Jewish life in Nantucket beginning in the 1780s, with an account of the Jewish families who played a role in the success of the island’s whaling industry, the exhibit will continue to document the slow sustained growth of a young community into the early1900s, the official formation of the Congregation in July 1983, and its subsequent history to the present.

Additionally, the exhibit will highlight specific individuals and describe how the Jewish people, though 30 miles out to sea without a religious organization of their own, were still able to overcome social barriers and were then able to gradually build homes, businesses, and a spiritual life on the island. As they have done elsewhere in the world, the exhibit will show how the Jewish population has not only survived, but contributed to, and flourished as a part of the growing and vibrant life of Nantucket.

OPENING JUNE 20

Above: Emile Genesky arrived in Nantucket in 1909 to run the family’s City Clothing Company.

Subsequently he bought and operated the Toggery Shop which was eventually sold and became Murray’s Toggery Shop. Genesky was part of a Nantucket consortium that created the Dreamland Movie Theatre. In 1918 he was elected to the Board of Selectman and a bit later was appointed a Special Justice of the Nantucket District Court. GIFT OF JOAN GENESKY RUBIN, P22529 Below: Simon (Cy) Kaufman was the owner of Cy’s Green Coffee Pot, a South Water Street restaurant, later occupied by the Atlantic Café. The restaurant was frequented by both the locals and tourists who valued the reasonable cost of a meal, well prepared by his wife Rose and served in a friendly atmosphere by any of his three children and in the summer by extended family. GIFT OF LOUIS S DAVIDSON, P6122

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

25

EX N EW HI BI T

Neptunes Grotto

By Philip Hoare, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton

“ I hate museums,” said Henry David Thoreau. “They are catacombs of Nature.” With all due deference to the great philosopher, Neptune’s Grotto, our new display at the Whaling Museum, hopes to prove him all wrong.

N

antucket has always gathered flotsam and jetsam.

As its ships and people have gone out into the world, so the world has come back here. Neptune’s Grotto is a magical collection of objects united by the fact that they have found a home in this museum, on this island. To me, they echo the adventure of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, laden with a diverse crew of people, new places and old gods, strange creatures, and surreal contradictions — just like Nantucket. Melville, who celebrates his 200th birthday this year, called himself a “library cormorant.” He dove from one collection to the other, determined to investigate the world above and below the “ocean’s skin.”

Like Melville, Neptune’s Grotto aspires to that eclectic spirit. Like the seventeenth and eighteenth century cabinet of curiosities or wunderkammer, the forerunners of the modern museum, its specimens have no labels: they invite you to invent your own stories. Did they arrive here in a whaling captain’s trunk, or were they

26

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

stolen by pirates, bought in a remote bazaar, bartered for a scrimshawed whale’s tooth, or swapped for a tot of rum? Or did they just wash in on a big spring tide?

In Moby-Dick, Melville wrote like a wild curator set loose in storerooms of whales and whaling history. His book begins with a wild Google search of whale references from Genesis to his present day and proceeds to lay out philosophical, often crazy, attempts to examine the true nature of the whale and the vast sea in which it swims. The great miracle of Moby-Dick is what it manages to squeeze between two covers. But it is also a fantastic liberation of images and ideas.

Melville reached back to a time before science, before we ordered and defined the natural world and human beings. In many ways, that ordering has been disastrous.

In his chapter “Cetology,” Melville satirizes our desire to catalog nature, inventing all manner of playful names and habits for the species of whales. But his games speak to a deeper mystery. We now “know” that there are 85

WATCH A SNEAK PEEK of Neptune’s Grotto on the NHA’s YouTube Channel! species of cetacean, yet we still understand very little about them. Even the best handbooks conclude that the information on the many whales is “data deficient.”

Some species of beaked whale have yet to be seen alive at sea.

How do we explain whales then, in the second decade of the twenty-first century? Are they the alien creatures of haunting song — the sound that saved them when it was first recorded in the 1960s, giving a lyrical voice to animals that had been regarded as dumb? Or are they merely scientific puzzles waiting to be solved? Where do we humans sit in that narrative? Do we hold dominion over the sea, doing what we like, or can we still react to its poetry, its profundity, and its soul?

Nantucket, this fragile island that might not be a part of America at all (just as Melville described it without ever having been here) is uniquely placed to hear these stories. Here the whale has shifted shape: from passive use by indigenous people to economic exploitation to emblem of ecological threat. Just as dinosaurs have now acquired feathers, so the whale has changed in step with our culture and science. Once a fearful monster, then a bountiful resource, now its fate lies in our hands. Indeed, it is the only animal other than ourselves whose evolution has been affected by culture, rather than mere instinct.

How do we deal with these mysteries and realities?

By telling our own stories. Neptune’s Grotto is full of them.

A stuffed bird of paradise from a tropical island peers out at us with beady eyes. A tiny turtle swims in a bubble of water in a glass paperweight to hold the attention of a nineteenth-century child posing for a daguerreotype.

Decoy wading birds mimic their living counterparts to lure them to their doom. A tusked walrus skull from the frozen North resembles a fossil of the legendary cyclops.

A massive whale’s jaw, impossibly contorted, proves its owner’s ability to survive and feed. These are all overseen by Andrew Sutton’s giant underwater photograph of sperm whales, whales with which I have swum: owners of the biggest brains on the planet, taking us down into the deep and telling their own stories as they go.

What do they add up to, these signs and wonders?

One thing is sure: they are all haunted by the grand

hooded phantom of the whale and this island, still surrounded by animals. The North Atlantic right whales and the humpback whales that swim past its shores in spring and summer; the snowy owls that guard its tundra-like sands in winter; the seals that haul out on its remote beaches. Scott Leonard of Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket took me out to Great Point one freezing morning.

We crawled through the compass grass to spy on the pinnipeds and their fluffy white calves as they sang their own eerie song.

Our new story is conservation and protection, of the past and the present, for the future. Here on Nantucket, this new – old place, the whale swims through its history and our own, as unknowable and mysterious as these objects we have collected. Neptune’s Grotto is our birthday present to Herman. I imagine his shelves filled with these same things, trawled on his own voyaging. And if at the end of his journey he had to conclude of the whale, “I know him not, and never will,” then these random objects also speak of our curious search for the meaning of things — even though we may never understand them.

MORE INFORMATION To contact Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket, go to: nantucketmarinemammals.org Philip Hoare’s latest book: Rising Tide Falling Star (University of Chicago Press)

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

27

EX N EW HI BI T

EXHIBITIONS AT HADWEN HOUSE GUEST CURATOR DAN ELIAS JOINS NHA THIS SPRING

D

aniel Elias joins the NHA this spring to develop a range of exhibits. He is organizing displays of decorative arts on the first floor at Hadwen House and telling stories with objects, images, text, sound, and light to highlight areas of strength and depth in new and approachable ways.

Areas include Nantucket furniture, paired with selected design source objects; the special character of Nantucket’s engagement with the China trade; the NHA’s collection of textiles, recently re-organized, conserved, and re-catalogued with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the cream of our silver collection. Meanwhile, on the second floor, thematic installations include an exhibit on the architecture of Nantucket in partnership with the Nantucket Preservation Trust; Melville and Moby-Dick with scholars Jamie Jones and Miranda Wells; and an expanded look at the nineteenth-century political education of Nantucket in From Slavery to Suffrage.

ABOUT DAN ELIAS A former host of WGBH’s popular Antiques Roadshow, Dan Elias directed the Peabody Essex Museum’s ECHO project, working with indigenous communities to share and celebrate the histories living in museum collections. Most recently, Elias led the New Art Center in Newton, Massachusetts, a community art school and gallery showing contemporary art. Elias holds a master’s degree in museum studies from Harvard University.

Nantucket’s ARCHITECTURAL LEGACY In Partnership with The Nantucket Preservation Trust

N

antucket’s architectural legacy will be explored in a new exhibit opening at the Hadwen House this spring in partnership with the Nantucket Preservation Trust (NPT) and co-curated by NPT’s executive director, Michael May and guest curator Dan Elias.

“There is something about Nantucket Town that is different from other places,” wrote architectural historian Everett U. Crosby in his 1937 pamphlet, “Ninety Five Per Cent Perfect.” What Crosby was referring to, of course, is the island’s “exceptional and unique ensemble” of buildings dating from the late seventeenth-century settlement period through the early nineteenth-century golden age of whaling.

Nantucket’s more than 50 years of economic depression in the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries discouraged large-scale rebuilding or the demolition of old structures. The island’s isolation - as well as an early appreciation of Nantucket’s unique historic character — also helped pave the way for the preservation of our architectural heritage. Today, the island’s historic resources remain largely intact. Individually and collectively, they are a national treasure that provides a sense of place that is distinctly Nantucket.

28

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

MELVILLE ON NANTUCKET Hadwen House Three exhibits explore Melville’s time on Nantucket, Moby-Dick and pop culture, and diversity onboard the Pequod.

T

he exhibition aims to make Melville relevant to visitors’ everyday life. The exhibition will be structured around three themes, and illustrated with objects from the NHA collection and private collections.

August 1, 2019, marks the 200th birthday of Herman Melville. In Moby-Dick, he celebrates Nantucket as “the great original” site of U.S. whaling; the island, in turn, has long celebrated its association with the famous novel. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Melville had never visited the island until the year after Moby-Dick was published. Instead, Melville found inspiration for the book in his own whaling experiences, the stories he heard among other sailors, and literature about whaling and Nantucket. In particular, the tragedy of the Nantucket whaleship Essex proved to have a profound impact on the climax of his great American novel. Yet Moby-Dick resonates far beyond the shores: it continues to shape the world’s imagination about the ocean, cross-cultural exchange, and human psychology.

Herman Melville, 1870 Joseph Oriel Eaton (1829-1875), Oil on canvas COLLECTION OF THE HOUGHTON LIBRARY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Hadwen House, ca. 1870s.

PHOTOGRAPHER: CHARLES H. SHUTE & SON, GPN-SHUTE-50

MELVILLE SYMPOSIUM With presentations by Nathaniel Philbrick and Melville scholars Wednesday, August 14 in the morning

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

29

EX N EW HI BI T

Melville on Nantucket In July 1852, the year after he published Moby-Dick, Melville sailed into Nantucket Harbor for the first time on the same packet steamer as Ishmael and Queequeg, characters in his novel. Few facts are known about Melville’s short stay. He accompanied his father-in-law, Judge Lemuel Shaw, who was on business. Shaw wrote of Melville, “I wish him to see some of the gents at New Bedford & Nantucket connected with whaling.” This likely included Shaw’s friend, the prominent Nantucketer Thomas Macy, who gave Melville a copy of his ancestor Obed Macy’s The History of Nantucket (1835), - and whose own house- right across the street - you are welcome to visit.

Among the other characters Melville met was George Pollard, captain of the Essex at the time of its demise.

Melville later wrote, “I… saw Capt. Pollard on the island of Nantucket, and [exchanged] some words with him.

To the islanders, he was a nobody — to me, the most impressive man, tho’ wholly unassuming even humble — that I ever encountered.” After the Essex disaster, Pollard lost a second ship, The Two Brothers.

Melville also “passed the evening with Mr. Mitchell the astronomer & his celebrated daughter, the discoverer of comets.” It is possible that Maria Mitchell, who became a professor of astronomy, was the inspiration for some of Melville’s later writings.

The Crew of the Pequod: Race and Diversity on Deck Moby-Dick helps us understand how to live in a diverse and changing world with people very different from ourselves.

On the whaling ship Pequod, Ishmael works alongside a strikingly multiracial crew. Among the ship’s harpooneers, Queequeg hails from the Pacific Islands, Ahasuerus Daggoo from a coastal village in Africa, and Tashtego from the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe at Gay Head in Martha’s Vineyard.

Ishmael learns lessons first from Queequeg, with whom he shares a bed at an overcrowded inn. Ishamael is at first frightened by Queequeg’s tattooed appearance and the tribal objects he carries around. He imagines that Queequeg might be a cannibal — a racist stereotype of South Pacific Islanders commonly held by white U.S. sailors. But Ishmael quickly comes to love his “bosomfriend” Queequeg.

30

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

The diverse fictional crew aboard the Pequod reflected the reality aboard U.S. whaling vessels, which were operated and overseen by officers and crew of many different races, ethnicities, and languages: immigrants from all over the world, especially from the Azores and Cape Verde Islands; African Americans, Africans; and Wampanoag and indigenous peoples from New England, the South Pacific, and other routine ports of call. Before the emancipation of enslaved people after the U.S. Civil War, the whaling industry was a place where people who escaped from slavery could find employment. Upon fleeing slavery, Frederick Douglass worked as a ship caulker in a shipyard. John Jacobs, brother to Harriet Jacobs (who wrote a famous slave narrative), shipped aboard a whaling voyage in hopes of raising funds to free his enslaved sister. Narratives by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are now read alongside Moby-Dick as classics of American literature with important, though often unrecognized, ties to the whaling industry.

Moby-Dick in Pop Culture Moby-Dick was a flop when it was first published in 1851.

During Melville’s lifetime, the book earned little acclaim and even less money. But a new generation of readers rediscovered Moby-Dick in the early twentieth century, inspired by the madcap humor and mystical symbolism that made the novel seem modern before its time.

Since then, Moby-Dick swims through popular culture, spawning adaptations in every imaginable medium.

Moby-Dick, it seems, often inspires its readers to make their own art -from breathtaking visionary illustrations

by Rockwell Kent; to the solemn 1956 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck as a stovepipe-hatted Ahab; to fantasy resettings of Melville’s novel on trains or spaceships; to raucous, all-night read-a-thons of the novel in museums and pubs around the world. Melville’s novel has also inspired countless researchers to uncover new works about whaling, like Nathaniel Philbrick’s popular In the Heart of the Sea, which in turn inspired the 2015 film. Moby-Dick also inspires pop culture in the everyday landscape throughout New England, especially here on Nantucket. Melville’s 1851 novel tells a dramatic sea tale, but, by all accounts, the Moby-Dick Inn and Cocktail Lounge in Siasconset offered a rollicking good time.

TEAM UP TO STUDY CLIMATE CHANGE NHA LOGBOOKS AT WORK

by Timothy Walker, Department of History, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

I

n climate research, long datasets are invaluable. They help scientists establish baseline weather dynamics and variability, against which to measure changes over time, create models, and illuminate different components of the climate system. Unfortunately, pre-nineteenth century instrumental data from regions beyond Europe and North America is sparse. A growing field of scholarship addresses this gap by interpreting historical records. One of the richest troves of maritime weather information is contained in the vast archives of ships’ logbooks, in which officers routinely recorded weather information over the course of their voyages.

Dr. Timothy Walker, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Dr. Caroline Ummenhofer, an oceanographer and paleo-climatologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), intend to tap an as-yet unexamined trove of climate data: U.S. whaling ship logbooks for voyages to the Indian Ocean, which invariably passed first through the Azores Islands region on their outbound journey.

Building on the success of similar earlier projects, like the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) project and Old Weather (which examined whalers’ voyages to the Arctic), they propose to recover, quantify, and analyze climate records from several whaling logbook archive collections, starting with the NHA. The records whalers generated predate most extant instrumental climate data. Using whaling logbooks for Indian Ocean voyages held in Nantucket, oceanographers and historians working together, can push the instrumental climate record back over 220 years, to the late 1700s, with a much broader geographical distribution than is currently available to climate scientists.

The Indian Ocean is the least observed tropical – temperate ocean and particularly vulnerable to human influences. The Asian monsoon is a lifeline for a billion people, for whom small changes in monsoon rainfall and

associated extreme weather events can have disproportionate effects on agriculture and economic well-being.

The project will provide a long-term context for variability of extreme weather, winds, and pressure changes across the “Roaring Forties” in the South Indian Ocean, one of the world’s most remote and poorly observed ocean regions. We will also gather data from the same voyages to track changes in the Azores High, a large subtropical semi-permanent center of high atmospheric pressure in the North Atlantic. Whaling voyages to the Indian Ocean conveniently tie these two regions together.

Walker began working in the NHA archive in December 2018, seeking to survey and examine whaling voyage logbooks in order to gather and record daily shipboard observations about weather at sea in the Atlantic (Azores Region) and Indian Oceans. This pilot project archival survey will provide primary source data to be analyzed by climate scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to broaden our understanding of North Atlantic and monsoonal Indian Ocean weather patterns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Walker and Ummenhofer will build up a mosaic of weather data points from scores of vessels, the officers of which recorded their position (latitude and longitude) almost every day (usually at noon), and recorded weather conditions in their ships’ logs typically two or three times a day. Sophisticated weather modeling can be built on that inventory of data points. The project will add additional data points to a stock that already exists for merchant and military vessels, which by the eighteenth century tended to follow defined sea lanes (determined by weather and currents) more so than whaling ships, which followed the migratory patterns of their leviathan prey. Thus, the whalers are navigational outliers, recording weather in places where other types of vessels rarely ventured.

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

31

Mark your calendar Mark your your calendar calendar for for aa a week week of dazzling design events on Nantucket Mark for week of ofdazzling dazzlingdesign designevents eventson onNantucket Nantucket Join Join us us for for the the NHA’s NHA’s major summer fundraiser Join us for the NHA’smajor majorsummer summerfundraiser fundraiser Chaired

by Phoebe Tudor Chaired Chaired by

by Phoebe PhoebeTudor Tudor

August August111 August

Design Design Design Luncheon Luncheon Luncheon Champagne Champagnereception reception

Champagne reception and andlunch lunchwith withkeynote keynote and presentation lunch with keynote presentationby by presentation by Bunny BunnyWilliams Williams Bunny Williams

August August 111 August

Nantucket Nantucket Nantucket Summer Summer Summer Antiques Antiques Show Show Antiques Show Preview Preview Party Party Preview Party 32 32Fine Fineantiques antiques

32 Fine from antiques dealers dealers fromthe the dealers from the United States United States&&abroad abroad United States & abroad

August 2 August August 22

Design Design Design Panel Panel Panel Panel discussion

Panel discussion Panel discussion featuring featuringdesigners, designers, featuring designers, Cathy CathyKincaid, Kincaid, Cathy Kincaid, Stewart Manger, Stewart Manger,and and Stewart Manger, and more! more!Moderated Moderatedby by more!

Moderated by Steele SteeleMarcoux, Marcoux, Steele Marcoux, editor-in-chief editor-in-chiefof of editor-in-chief of Veranda Verandamagazine magazine

August 2 August August22

All-Star All-Star All-Star Private Private Dinners Dinners Private Dinners Intimate Intimatecandlelit candlelit Intimate candlelit dinners dinnersfeaturing featuring dinners featuring design designluminaries luminaries design luminaries

August 3 August August3 3

Night at the Night atat the Night the Museum Museum Museum Fabulous Fabulousparty party

Fabulous party surrounded surroundedby by surrounded by Nantucket’s Nantucket’shistory history Nantucket’s history

Veranda magazine

The TheNantucket NantucketHistorical HistoricalAssociation Associationbrings bringsthe theworld’s world’stop toptalent talentin ininterior interiordesign designto tothe theisland island The Nantucket Historical Association brings the world’s top talent in interior design tothe theNantucket island and offers a carefully curated lineup of lectures, discussion panels, and vignettes, along with and offers a carefully curated lineup of lectures, discussion panels, and vignettes, along with the Nantucket and offers a carefully curated lineup of lectures, discussion panels, and vignettes, along with the Nantucket Summer SummerAntiques AntiquesShow ShowPreview PreviewParty, Party,Private PrivateDinners, Dinners,and andNight Nightat atthe theMuseum Museumgala. gala.Now Nowin inits itsfourth fourth

Summer Antiques Show Preview Party, Private Dinners, and Night at the Museum gala.

Now in its fourth year, year,NANTUCKET NANTUCKETBY BYDESIGN DESIGN draws drawsaadistinguished distinguishedcrowd crowdto tocelebrate celebratethe theisland’s island’sunique uniqueinfluence influenceon on year, NANTUCKET BY DESIGN draws a distinguished crowd to celebrate the island’s unique influence on American Americandesign design— —all allwhile whilesupporting supportingan anorganization organizationthat thatisiscentral centralto toall allwe wecherish cherishabout aboutNantucket.

Nantucket.

American design — all while supporting an organization that is central to all we cherish about Nantucket.

32

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019

TO BENEFIT TO BENEFIT TO BENEFIT

2019 2019 Design Luminaries 2019 Design Design Luminaries Luminaries Bunny Williams Bunny Bunny Williams Williams

Steele Marcoux Steele Marcoux Steele Marcoux As editor-in-cheif of Veranda

Cathy Kincaid Cathy Cathy Kincaid Kincaid

Stewart Manger Stewart Stewart Manger Manger

Considered one of the most Considered one of the most Considered one in ofdesign, the most talented names talented names in design, talented design, Bunny is names also anin accomplished Bunny is also an accomplished Bunny is also an accomplished businesswoman, entrepreneur, businesswoman, entrepreneur, businesswoman, entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist.

A lover author, and philanthropist. A lover author, and philanthropist.

A Bunny’s lover of dogs, gardens, and china, of dogs, gardens, and china, Bunny’s of dogs, gardens, and china, Bunny’s knowledge and expertise is on par with her enjoyment knowledge and expertise is on par with her enjoyment knowledge and expertise is on par withinher enjoyment of life. Her eponymous firm—launched 1988 following of life. Her eponymous firm—launched in 1988 following of life.

Her eponymous fi rm—launched in 1988 following a 22-year apprenticeship with the esteemed Parisha 22-year apprenticeship with the esteemed Parisha 22-year apprenticeshipwrought with theits esteemed ParishHadley Associates—has own indelible Hadley Associates—has wrought its own indelible Hadley Associates—has wrought its own indelible imprint and legacy. imprint and legacy. imprint and legacy.

Cathy Kincaid’s enviable sense of Cathy Kincaid’s enviable sense of Cathy Kincaid’s enviable color and intricate designsense detailof color and intricate design detail color and intricate has established herdesign as onedetail of the has established her as one of the has established her as one the country’s top designers andofan country’s top designers and an country’sfavorite top designers and an editorial whose work is editorial favorite whose work is editorial favorite whose work is published internationally. For more published internationally. For more published internationally. more houses for her than 30 years, Kincaid hasFor designed than 30 years, Kincaid has designed houses for her than 30 years, Kincaid has designed houses for her of clients that are as individual as they are.

A recipient clients that are as individual as they are. A recipient of clients thatJohn are as individual asKincaid they are. recipient of the ICAA’s Staub Award, is A highly respected the ICAA’s John Staub Award, Kincaid is highly respected the ICAA’s John Staub Award, Kincaid is highly respected for her commitment to restoring old houses and filling for her commitment to restoring old houses and filling for herwith commitment to stylish restoring old houses and filling them traditionally antiques and furnishings. them with traditionally stylish antiques and furnishings. them with traditionally stylish antiques and furnishings.

As editor-in-cheif of Veranda As editor-in-cheif of Veranda Steele Marcoux’s design education Steele Marcoux’s design education Steele Marcoux’s design education started during her childhood in started during her childhood in started during in Atlanta, where her shechildhood spent many Atlanta, where she spent many Atlanta, where she spent many afternoons with her artist mother afternoons with her artist mother afternoons with her artist mother browsing through galleries, antiques browsing through galleries, antiques browsing through galleries, antiques stores, and fabric showrooms.

After stores, and fabric showrooms. After stores, and fabric showrooms.

After graduating from Williams College, where Steele studied graduating from Williams College, where Steele studied graduating from Williams College, where Steele art history and played on the varsity tennis team,studied she art history and played on the varsity tennis team, she art history and played on the varsity tennis team, worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C., before she worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C., before worked asto a the reporter D.C., of before returning southintoWashington, pursue a Master Arts in returning to the south to pursue a Master of Arts in returning to the south to pursue a Master of Arts in American history at the University of Alabama.

American history at the University of Alabama.

American history at the University of Alabama.

A New York-based interior designer, A New York-based interior designer, A New York-based interior designer, Stewart Manger, over the course of Stewart Manger, over the course of Stewart over in the course of 20 years,Manger, has worked some of the 20 years, has worked in some of the 20 years, has worked in some of the most celebrated design offices in the most celebrated design offices in the most celebrated designgraduated offices in the United States. Stewart from United States. Stewart graduated from United States.

Stewart graduated Trinity College and subsequently from Trinity College and subsequently Trinity College and subsequently worked at Sotheby’s in London. Stewart Manger Design worked at Sotheby’s in London. Stewart Manger Design worked at Sotheby’s in London.

Stewart offers a full range of design services and Manger works Design offers a full range of design services and works offers a full range of residential design services and works collaboratively with architectural firms. He collaboratively with residential architectural firms. He collaboratively with residential architectural firms. strives to create interiors that are both stylish and He strives to create interiors that are both stylish and strives to create that are both stylish comfortable thatinteriors reflect his clients' needs for aand comfortable that reflect his clients' needs for a comfortable that reflect his clients' needs for a modern lifestyle. modern lifestyle. modern lifestyle.

PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT NANTUCKET, MA AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY OFFICES

P.O. BOX 1016, NANTUCKET, MA 02554–1016

NEW MUSEUM SHOP NOW OPEN NHA Members enjoy 10% off all regularly priced items 100% of all purchases support the NHA

Shop online now at nantucketmuseumshop.org 13 Broad Street | Nantucket MA 02554 508-228-1894, ext. 147 Shop@nha.org

Museum Reproductions | Books Souvenirs | Toys | Gifts 4

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2019