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Digitization Update
Research Library
The Research Library team is hard at work digitizing and transcribing the NHA’s collections. Since December, they have digitized 16,000 pages of more than 2,000 items, all of which are now available to researchers online through the NHA’s collections catalog (nantuckethistory.org).
Digitization and transcription of the NHA’s collections is made possible thanks to a visionary gift from Connie and Tom Cigarran.
With 1,500 items documenting more than 250 vessels, the Ships’ Papers Collection (MS15) includes crew lists, correspondence, receipts, and more. All documenting the maritime history of Nantucket, the materials found in this collection provide an important supplement to the logbook collection, also available online, and are a window into how the whaling economy operated and who participated in it.
This 1829 shipping paper for the ship Enterprise lists noted African American Nantucketer Captain Absalom Boston as the witness for multiple crew members. MS15 Folder 54 Item 4.
Grace Brown Gardner was a beloved island historian who spent thousands of hours compiling more than seventy scrapbooks on Nantucket history. Consisting mostly of newspaper clippings, Gardner’s scrapbooks are arranged topically and were considered a must-consult resource for Nantucket researchers for more than fifty years. They are now available online and keyword searchable as part of the Grace Brown Gardner Papers (MS57).
Scrapbook 1 contains clippings related to Nantucket Churches. Gift of Grace Brown Gardner. MS57 Scrapbook 1.
ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ADVENTURE?
Follow along on whaling voyages from the comfort of your own home! The NHA is looking for volunteers to help transcribe the whaling journals in its collection. If you are interested in volunteering, please email Ashley Miller, Assistant Archivist, at amiller@nha.org.
The NHA has several collections of ephemera, the small and transient documents of everyday life, are a treasure trove of visual and material insight into an array of Nantucket businesses, civic organizations, and more. Two such collections, Nantucket Lodging and Eating Establishments Ephemera Collection (MS236) and Nantucket Businesses Ephemera Collection (MS467) are now available online. Highlights include late-nineteenth-century hotel registers, boat basin reservation forms, restaurant guides and menus, and hotel and business brochures, such as the one depicted here.
Take a look inside the whaling logbook of the ship Edward Cary, flip the page!
This undated brochure from the Nantucket Kiteman highlights delta-shaped kites handmade on Nantucket. MS467 Folder 26 Item 3.
The NHA’s photographic collections span nearly 400 feet and date from 1845 through to the present day. Within the photographic collections is the Cased Photographs Collection (PH169), made up of cased ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and other early photographic formats. The portraits in this collection are often the only photographic documentation of Nantucket’s whaling elite, particularly during the industry’s waning years between the Great Fire of 1846 and the last whaleship’s departure in 1869. The collection also contains the only known photograph of Nantucket before the Great Fire: an 1845 daguerreotype depicting Main Street, pictured here. In 1917, nineteen-year-old F. Chester Adams (1898–1979) of Pittsfield, N.H., took a three-month summer job as a bellhop at Nantucket’s Sea Cliff Inn. He wrote regularly to his mother, sending descriptions of his work, impressions of the island, photographs of his friends, and requests for personal items he found he needed. (He also sent her his laundry to wash and return.) The F. Chester Adams Letters (MS545) has been digitized and transcribed, along with a number of other smaller collections of letters.
Postcard from F. Chester Adams, who worked at the Sea Cliff Inn in 1917, to his mother in Pittsfield, N.H. Gift of Carl Anderson. MS545 Folder 1 Item 1.
Programs
Daily, in-person, interpretive programming has returned to the Whaling Museum after a hiatus during the pandemic. Interpretive programming includes The Essex Gam, which retells the tragedy of the whaleship Essex, stove by a whale in 1820 in the Pacific Ocean, and The Hunt, exploring what it was like to live aboard a whaleship and hunt for whales in the 19th century. Generously supported by The Perkin Fund.
Properties
Property Investment Project
This winter, the NHA began projects to make significant investments in its portfolio of Historic Properties and other facilities over two years with the support of grant funding and its donors. Core to the NHA’s mission and consistent with objectives in its strategic plan, it includes investments that will enhance the portfolio’s attractiveness, safety, security, access, and ease of use. Several projects that began in January include the replacement of the Whaling Museum’s Candle Factory roof with slate and installation of a new interior handicap lift; new fencing at the Thomas Macy House; exterior restoration of masonry and windows; sewer updates at the Research Library and Quaker Meeting House, and security/fire protection and sewer updates at the Hadwen House.
Left: The new slate roof of the Whaling Museum's Candle Factory. Right: The crew of James Lydon Sons & Daughters after completion of the project. Rendering of new ADA lift being installed in the Candle Factory.
Program
History Makers
History Makers is a new series of exploratory offerings where the NHA collections and the hands-on making experience meet, launching this spring! Nantucket’s long tradition in the art culture has served as a backbone to the island economy, both in fine art and the craft sector. Many of these objects are so familiar to island life, yet we may not have a real connection to their origin and significance. In this series, students will visit the NHA’s Gosnold Collections Center to view firsthand objects and participate in lecture demonstrations and hands-on workshop sessions in the art of making a similar object. Program
Group of youth weavers taking a class this past February.
Youth Weaving
It’s never too early to learn the craft of basket weaving and begin a lifelong practice. Creating a Nantucket Lightship basket by hand is a thrill, and “through the eyes of a child,” it is even more exciting. Here on Nantucket, under the auspices of the NHA in affiliation with the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, the youth weaving program is alive and well. New weavers begin with a basic basket. After their first weaving session, students move on with another basket, learning new skills with each weaving session. The small class size allows for hands-on instruction for each student.
Learning to make things by hand is important for the youth in our digital world, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of this cherished Nantucket craft. Students sign their completed basket with a sense of accomplishment, making it uniquely theirs. Generously supported by The Nantucket Golf Club Foundation.
