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Administrator's Report
6
FALL ADMISSIONS to our buildings have been good and, as before, the visitors seem especially interested and appreciative. We have had a number of student groups and a few college classes with their professors. Mr. Stackpole gave a lecture to each student group which they found most interesting and helpful. This was especially appreciated by the college classes who were required to write a thesis on Nantucket history, whaling or architecture.
Major repairs at the 1800 House and the Hadwen-Satler Memorial fence are nearly completed and a number of minor repairs to the other buildings have been cleaned up. I cannot say that all is done that needs to be done because with old buildings, new problems constantly arise but I am certain we are in better shape than we have been for some time.
The resignations of Mr. W. Ripley Nelson as Chairman of the Whaling Museum, Mr. Alcon Chadwick as Chairman of the Hadwen-Satler Memorial, and Mr. and Mrs. Lindquist from the Whaling Museum Staff were serious losses because each had been contributing a great amount of time and talent to these museums for many years.
We have been extremely fortunate, however, in filling these positions with very competent people. Mr. Hugh R. Chace has taken over the chairmanship of the Whaling Museum, Mrs. Charles Clark Coffin as chairman of the Hadwen House-Satler Memorial, and Mr. David Allan has taken Mr. Lindquist's place. Besides these, we have been most fortunate in getting Mrs. Harding U. Greene to become chairman of the Friends Meeting HouseFair Street Museum.
We are planning a number of Association meetings at the Peter Foulger Museum this winter at which Mr. Stackpole will talk about and illustrate various phases of Nantucket history. The first of these will be January 17th and we hope many will attend. These lectures should be very interesting and enlightening, plus giving members and guests an opportunity to browse through the Museum. Another look at things you have seen before is often worthwhile and we have some recent additions well worth seeing.
The State, through the Department of Arts and Humanities, has given us a $300.00 matching grant to start a program of cataloging and indexing our books and manuscripts and Miss Eleanor Phinney will begin this work immediately.
We had another sizable increase in membership in response
ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT 7
to our appeal letters and a number of new people have purchased life memberships. At present these only cost $100.00 but are good for us because the income continues after the purchaser is no long with us.
We now have booklets describing the Peter Foulger Museum on sale there or by mail from this office for $1.00 plus .25 for tax and mailing.
We also have copies of Mr. Stackpole's new book "Whales and Destiny" for $15.00 plus .45 for tax and .50 more if by mail. This is a beautiful, authentic book representing a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and several years of intensive research both here and in England. It is always interesting to read a book by an author one knows but doubly so when the author is the leading authority in the world on the subject.
We have started an attic cleanout project and two more appreciated volunteers, Mrs. Martha Boynton and Mrs. Mary Amey, have made considerable progress at the Whaling Museum. Many important artifacts stored there at a time when we were short of space, can now be brought out and exhibited.
Scrap books compiled over the years with Inquirer and Mirror clippings by Miss Grace Brown Gardner are now at the Peter Foulger Museum and are a valuable source of quick reference.
