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· n ofthe Nantucket Htst,nrical Association
Summer2007 Volume 56, No. 3
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NANTUCKET HIS TOR.ICAL ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES E. Geoffrey Verney, President Bruce A Percelay, Vzce President Janet L. Sherlund, Vzce President John W. AthertonJr., Treasurer Melissa C. Philbrick, Clerk
Historic Nantucket
A Publication of the Nantucket Historical Association
Summer 2007
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Vol. 56, No. 3
4 Grounded at Sea Level: Frank Swift Chase on Nantucket
ThomasJ. Anathan Rebecca M. Bartlett C. Marshall Beale Kenneth L. Beaugrand Heidi L. Berry, Friends ofthe NHA Robert H. Brust Nancy A Chase William R. Congdon Richard L. Duncan MaryEEspy Nancy A Geschke, Friends ofthe NHA Georgia P. Gosnell, Trustee Emerita Nina S. Hellman Sarah B. Newton Anne S. Obrecht Elizabeth T. Peek Christopher C. Quick Melanie R. Sabelhaus Nancy M. Soderberg Bette M. Spriggs Isabel C. Stewart Jay M. WI.Ison
BY ROBERT FRAZIER
The Rainbow Fleet (ca. 1930), oil on canvas board. Gift of George S. Heyer Jr. in honor of Niles D. Parker.
10 Nantucket in the Art of Maginel Wright BY MARY JANE HAMIL T ON
Jethro Coffin House (Oldest House),
from Maginel Wright's 1917 Calendar. Courtesy of the Gillham family.
16 Remembering the Artist Robert J. Freiman BY RENE L A P IERRE
Portrait (1945), colored pencil on paper. Private collection.
WtlliamJ.Tramposch EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Mary H. Beman Thomas B. CongdonJr. Richard L. Duncan PeterJ. Greenhalgh AmyJenness Cecil BarronJensen RobertE Mooney Elizabeth Oldham Nathaniel Philbrick Bette M. Spriggs James Sulzer David H. Wood Ben Simons
From the Executive Director
3
WILL IAM J. TRAMPOSCH
Book Review I MICHAEL P. DYER Leviathan: The History a/Whaling in America, by Eric Jay Dolin
Yerxas Boat Shop (ca. 1 935), oil on board, by Frank Swift Chase (1886-1958). Collection of Meredith and Eugene Clapp. COVER:
By the Way I ROBERT o. FELCH Sankaty Light: "I see Sankaty, the mariner'sfriend!" NHANews
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EDITOR
Elizabeth Oldham COPY EDITOR
Eileen Powers/Javatime Design DESIGN & ART DIRECTION Jeffrey Allen ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history Original research; firsthand accounts; reminiscences of island experiences; historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers.
©2007 by the Nantucket Historical Association Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly 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) 228-1 894; fax: (508) 228-5618, nhainfo@,haorg For information log on to www.nha.org
"Here we are," said Hanna to Gertrude, "what next?" iolet Oakley was a mural painter in Philadelphia. She was a friend of Hanna and Gertrude Monaghan, two Quaker sisters who once admitted to catch ing "a virus ...under the pseudonym of ART." The Monaghans were not your ordinary Pennsylvania Quakers, so it was fitting that Violet would suggest, "You girls should try an island that I have found. It is thirty miles at sea, and it is like being on a boat." That island, of course, was Nantucket, already the historic home of other equally unchar acteristic Quakers, those whale-hunting "Quakers with a vengeance" about whom Melville writes in Moby-Dick. It was not long before the Monaghan sisters followed Violet's advice right off the ferry and onto the cobblestones, leaving the rest to fate and faith. As Gertrude tells it, they found them selves following a herd of cattle up Main Street. Turning onto Bull Lane just past the Civil War monument, they and the herd entered a spacious and smelly eighteenth century barn. Once there, they immediately saw the potential of the place as a future home for their artistic passions. On the spot, they asked if the owner would consid er selling the old barn. He would, and their offer was accepted. During the next few years they trucked out dung while trucking in easy chairs, art works, and easels that today are well preserved in the Nantucket Historical Association's collections. Within this lovingly created setting, the Monaghan sisters hosted myriad evenings of song, poetry, music, and drama. Furthermore, virtually every corner of the house and its gardens were captured in Gertrude's paint ings, and many of those renderings are also in our collections, along with myriad photo graphs. The sisters came here in 1929, and they did not settle unnoticed into the insular island culture. While their creativity and religion pressed lovingly outward toward a greater light, xenophobia shoved in on them
from the community. They soon became aware that they had "tread upon toes" because of their different ways. Comments like these could be heard through their walls: "Had they loved the old town they would have copied its houses." "Look what they have built," said some. "It is not Italian, it is not Spanish or Colonial.What is it?" And others, "These people have not the interest of the old town at heart." Such seemed to be the consensus then; one still-living witness of their ways recently referred to the sisters as having been "the epitomy of oddness." But how things have changed. Years later, in the 1960s, Gertrude would recall that in one of her trunks were clothes they had made during their tenure at Greater Light. The clothes, when unpacked thirty years later, were exactly in vogue with the current fashion of the Sixties! Similarly, today, Greater Light, once on the chopping block for deaccessioning by the Nantucket Historical Association, is now a highly val ued property eagerly awaiting restoration. When finished, it will tell the story of the Monaghans who, in turn, opened no small door into Nantucket's transformation into an art colony and resort. Greater Light will become an eloquent reminder of a period when this island was making a crucial tran sition into another era-an era we all take for granted today but one that came slowly and sometimes hurtfully to this insulated "elbow of sand." So, ". . . what next?" Fortunately, the Nantucket Historical Association has received $400,000 from the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee. This amount will require matching funds before we can begin restor ing and reinterpreting this significant cor ner of Nantucket history. The complete restoration will require $1.6 million. When completed, Nantucket will once again have an incomparable resource: a venue for the kinds of intimate gatherings the Mona-
ghans themselves once hosted: music, drama, art displays, poetry readings. To do this, the NHA will continue to work closely with other island not-for-profits. The restoration and reinterpretation of Greater Light is the first in a series of initia tives that we call Four Centuries and Four Sites. These efforts will focus ultimately on three other sites: the Oldest House; the Old Mill; and the Hadwen House. Over the next few years, we will keep you posted on our progress at Greater Light. We believe that Gertrude's and Hanna's house speaks great ly to the identity of this island; in her book, Greater Light of Nantucket, Hanna recalls a scene that presages our belief. There is a man who comes each summer to our door. He is nameless. Like some migratory bird, we watch for him each year. "My stay on the island is not complete," he says, "without stopping here. It epitomizes to me the charm, the mystery, the old his tory, all here in this one spot."
WILLIAM J. TRAMPOSCH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Summer 2007 I J
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that led a high spirit like Chase to this role turned here and there on chance. The pervasiveness of his influence, however, had little to do with outside cir cumstances. His determina tion as a teacher sprang from an inner strength of character, and that character under pinned the art scene on Nantucket from 1920 into the mid-1950s. Chase's reputation as a painter, of course, preceded him. His naturalistic approach traced its lineage through two en plein air painters of the era, tonalist Lowell Birge Harrison (1854----1929), a protege ofJohn Singer Sargent, and Swedish-born John Fabian Carlson (1874----1945). Also, Chase's island stu dents-dominated by a core of accomplished women-quickly became respected peers as well as key players in the evolution of the Nantucket colony. Today, the Chase effect is still felt in an artis tic community both empowered by women painters and focused on the same overriding central imagery of seascapes and moors that Chase found so satisfying to paint.
The EarlyYears
Frank Swift Chase was born to Charles D. and Grace Metcalf Chase on March 12, 1886, in St. Louis. He grew up in modest comfort in the family residence, Forrest Home, at Bauxite, Arkansas. He and his older brother, Edward Leigh Chase (known as Ned), are remembered as a "robust pair" who rode the railroads between Mis and souri Arkansas on "archetypical adventures of youthful dis covery." After high school, Frank worked in the area at a cou ple of jobs. His papers in the Smithsonian archives contain a 1907 birthday note alluding to his stint with the St. Louis Telephone 6
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ABOVE: Union Street (ca. 1930), oil on board. Collection of Barbara Beinecke Spitler. RIGHT: Woodstock Artists Association cofounder Andrew Dasburg and fellow artists. BELOW LEFT: Forrest Home, Bauxite, Arkansas.
Company, as well as a 1909 employment refer ence written by the Aluminum Company of America, where Chase worked for his father, a geologist and researcher at the Alcoa mining laboratory in Bauxite. Like his brother, Chase deferred further education at a traditional col lege or university.
Training at the League
In 1909, Frank followed Ned to New York City and studied at the Art Students League, a sem inal fine-arts school that surfaces in the back grounds of many American art figures. Their sister, Lyna Chase Souther, had also studied there, for the ASL offered trairiing to both sexes in a time when many universities still consid ered painting to be a man's pursuit. 'J\rt was certainly an important part of the Chase family upbringing," states Larry Stevens, the great-grandson of Lyna Chase, in recent correspondence. "It seems to me that Lyna would have been a very important influ ence on Frank's art. Six years older, she would have been studying landscape painting at a very impressionable age for Frank." Engaged in outdoor activities during his entire youth, Frank Chase had developed a muscular physique that helped secure him work as a life-drawing model at the ASL, where illustrators Frank and Joseph Leyendecker transformed sketches of him into advertise ments for Arrow Collars. He sketched models himself, when possible, and took oil-painting classes that winter.
A Woodstoc [ransfonnation
Frank Chase became a student ofJohn Fabian Carlson in 1910 when the Chase brothers, no doubt lured by stories of gorgeous scenery and a utopian camaraderie, attended the Art Students League's summer painting program at Woodstock, New York. Carlson was a brash ASL board member who previously had cham pioned a move of their summer studies-first established at Lyme, Connecticut-to facilities at the Byrdcliffe arts and crafts colony founded in Woodstock in 1902. Carlson had used an ASL scholarship in 1904 to study under Birge Harrison at Byrdcliffe, and with Carlson's help, the ASL coerced Harrison into directing this reinvention of their summer program in the Catskill Mountains starting in 1906. By 1907, Harrison had hired Carlson as his assistant instructor. In turn, Carlson assumed director ship of the popular program from his mentor in 1911, and hired Frank Chase as his assistant. Chase's initial years inWoodstock were spent within a tight-knit community of creative minds. Carlson, in his writings on the ASL pub lished in 1932, talks of a clique in the colony that used to meet on a stone wall at Rock City, "an obscure mountain crossroad" near the vil lage. "There of an evening," wrote Carlson, he
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engaged in forming the Woodstock Artists Association in 1919, Frank Chase heard that Margaret Underwood Davis, yet another student from the ASL, was looking for an instructor to teach on Nantucket Island the following summer. settled into equestrian portraiture in his later life. Frank achieved national recognition for his landscapes, and developed a reputation as the country's foremost painter of trees due to the use of his oils in a series of widely run advertisements for the Davey Tree Expert Company. Still, the two men rarely drifted far from the Hudson Valley. The Chase brothers settled with their families in Woodstock and considered it their permanent home.
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DA V,E Y TREE S lJ R GEO N � would sit with a "high-brow" crowd that often included stalwarts like Chase, Henry McFee, Andrew Dasburg, and Carl linden, as well as Chase's eventual wife, Evelyn Jacus. During the middle of that decade, Chase taught regularly, married, and grew in stature as a landscape painter. By 1919, Frank Swift Chase-in congress with his old friends from the stone-wall gather ings: Carlson, McFee, linden, and Dasburg was laboring to found the Woodstock Artists Association, a template for many arts organi zations to follow, including the Artists Association of Nantucket. Writer Richard Le Gallienne credited those five men in his essay on the WM published in 1923. Actually, they founded two interrelated entities: the Artists Realty Company, for the purchase of land and construction of a gallery, and the Woodstock Artists Association, for establishing policies and overseeing exhibitions. Tom Wolf, profes sort of art history at Bard College, counts Frank Chase among its most active members in a 2001 essay, "The Founders of the Woodstock Artists Association." Other sources indicate that Chase kept close ties with the association throughout his life. Those bohemian years had a profound effect on Frank and Ned. Ned developed into a strong illustrator with an irreverent streak who
Chase cut a dapper figure as an art teacher. He smoked a pipe and held a preference for color ful bow ties and starched white shirts. He was confident, yet, according to a thick sheaf of love letters sent by Chase to painter and ASL alumna Evelyn Jacus during the many months before their wedding in 1916, Frank Chase had tried-with mixed results-to teach outside of Woodstock. These attempts started in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1914. Gary Alexander Irving, aided by Chase's son Denison, detailed some of this account in a catalogue to the crucial Vose Gallery retrospec tive of Frank Chase's work mounted in Boston in January of 1985. "I can' t really see," wrote Chase from Charleston, "how I can ever make them think they have learned anything when I leave here. I tell them just a few of the first principles and they get discouraged and say 'How can I remember all that?' I show them a single tree or group of trees, sky and ground just to explain the values. When I come around I find half of them have decided to paint a cannon." Chase expressed further frustration with the limitations of an art instructor, and with the amount of time teaching consumed when he could be advancing his personal skills. "However, I pulled through," he wrote, as if it served as a working motto. After South Carolina, he returned to the Hudson Valley to court Evelyn and work in the artist community that had settled about the crossroads at Rock City. Anita M. Smith lived next door to the Chases and portrays them as heroic in her famous chronicle of the town and the colony, Woodstock: History and Hearsay, published in 1959. At one early Maverick Festival, an annual arts festival that drew actors and musicians and other types of artists to the area, a duo of famous wrestlers did not
-ABOVE: Nantucket Beach Scene (ca. 1935), oil on board. Collection of Barbara Beinecke Spitler. LEFT: Davey Tree Expert Co. print ad (1924).
appear to present their act. Frank and Ned searched and found them under a tree listen ing to Byrdcliffe poet Hervey White as he read aloud. Chase successfully rousted the pair. Smith further referred to him as "husky Frank," and characterized him as "always the person called when there was trouble and a real man was needed." Frank and Evelyn Chase became parents for the first and only time in January of 1923 when Denison was born at Woodstock. This hap pened after a particularly fruitful period, when Chase had exhibited at the Corcoran in Washington, D. C., in 1921; won the 1922 Peabody Prize from the Chicago Art Institute; and committed to summer-long sessions of teaching on Nantucket.
D1scoverin �antucket
While engaged in forming the Woodstock Artists Association in 1919, Frank Chase heard that Margaret Underwood Davis, yet another student from the ASL, was looking for an instructor to teach on Nantucket Island the fol lowing summer. Chase conveyed his interest in the position through a mutual friend. With the WM gallery under construction, Chase felt free to join Davis at the Underwood Cottages on Hulbert Avenue for the month of July in 1920. Chase returned to the island with Evelyn for July and August ofl921, and between then and 1954 they missed only two summers, when he painted the arid landscape about Palm Springs, California, from 1935 to 1936. The Chase family rented a series of residences in their years on island, including rooms with their friend Tony Sarg. Chase also worked out of a number of studios, some owned by Florence Lang and others belonging to fellow artists or friends. Any qualms Chase had about teaching away from his beloved Woodstock must have eased when he led his students to the beaches; the marshlands; and the flat, subtle landscapes at the island's interior. Bebe Poor, whose great aunt was Margaret Davis, recalls that Chase was often a robust and cheerful figure in their Summer 2007
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FAR LEFT: The Moors (ca. 1935), oil on canvas board. Collection of Barbara Beinecke Spitler. LEFT: Chase by Louis Davidson (ca. 1930). BELOW: Chase teach ing en plein air on Mill Hill.
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family life during the years following that fate ful summer of 1920. Pastel artist George Thomas recounts a day sketching on the wharves as a boy when Chase invited him into his studio to talk shop. Florence Clifford, niece of art maven Florence Lang, remembers Chase as full of enthusiasm and energy.
The Florence Lang Connection
Many American art colonies flourished due to a key patron of the arts. Mabel Dodge Luhan set tled in Taos after running art salons in Manhattan and Florence, Italy, and that New Mexico colony expanded with art figures that she had first invited to her home. At Woodstock, the initial round of colonists settled into Byrdcliffe, the utopian experiment spearhead ed by Ralph and Jane "Byrd" Whitehead on a couple of hundred acres of prime farmland. On Nantucket, we had Florence Osgood Rand Lang, already known as a force in the art circles of Montclair, New Jersey. Florence and Henry Lang owned Island Service Wharf, now Old South Wharf, as well as several little-used properties along the water front. Through her acquaintance with the Under woods, Florence signed up as one of Chase's first students, and they quickly became friends. Lang perceived the need of affordable summer housing for this sudden wave of visit ing artists. She renovated a cluster of her fishing shacks and a house at the confluence of Washington Street and what is now Commercial Wharf, including the historic Candle House fac tory building, which she converted into a studio and gallery space. Many of her boarders came specifically to study with Chase, according to Elizabeth Saltonstall, who arrived there as a col lege-aged girl for just that reason. Lang also opened the Easy Street Gallery, the 8
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of novice painters, Chase resolved many of the doubts he originally expressed to Evelyn during his thirty-plus summers on Nantucket. island's lone arts outlet from 1923 to her death in 1943. Chase's cadre of waterfront artists and Nantucket staples like Tony Sarg, whose Curiosity Shop was a neighboring concern on Easy Street, frequented the gallery as a central meetinghouse. Her August "open' ' exhibitions were the highlight of the season. They annual ly featured a printed catalogue with a Ruth Haviland Sutton rendering of the t wo-story, refurbished bathhouse on a dark yellow cover. Hardly an August went by without at least one Chase landscape on the gallery walls.
Ladies of the Waterfront
As a lifelong teacher of novice painters, Chase resolved many of the doubts he originally expressed to Evelyn during his thirty -plus summers on Nantucket. It may have helped to have such a talented gathering of students during those months, especially the dynamic women who settled on the island and involved themselves in local arts at the highest levels. Though other students of Chase-like Millicent Clapp or Rae Carpenter-were accomplished painters, five women stand out in their roles as founders of the Artists Association of Nantucket. Like all five, Anne Ramsdell Congdon (1873-1958) was a regular exhibitor at the Easy Street Gallery and one of Chase's most accom plished pupils. Congdon played an active role in institutions like the Nantucket Historical Association and Hospital Thrift Shop, as well as the Artists Association of Nantucket and its
shows at the Kenneth Taylor Galleries. Emily Leaman Hoffrneier (1888-1952) administered the groundbreaking Sidewalk Art Show from 1935 to 1952. Hoffrneier worked out of the Red Anchor Studio adjacent to the Candle House and the Florence Lang housing complex on Washington Street, and she sat on several AAN committees. A lithographer as well as a painter, Elizabeth Saltonstall (1900-90) sat on the first executive committee for the AAN in 1945, and, more than anyone, she worked to integrate the artists and the art patrons during the mature years of the art colony. Saltonstall summered in the Lang cottage named Wateredge for five decades. When her husband, Emerson, died sudden ly in 1946 after just a few months as the AAN's first president, Isabelle Hollister Tuttle (1895-1978) took a strong role in administer ing the association for three decades. She stud ied under both Chase and the island's next influential art teacher, Philip Burnham Hicken. Ruth Haviland Sutton (1900- 60) was a wide ly recognized artist who purchased, and refur bished, key art colony buildings from the estate of Florence Lang in 1944. She lived in the Candle House while maintaining the heart of the colony for another fifteen years.
Chase En PleinAir
After the turn of the century, new and radical trends in European art began to exert their influence on America. The infamous Armory Show of 1913 quickly divided artists, or at least
FAR LEFT: Nantucket Town from Coatue (ca. 1925), oil on board. Collection of Peter and Sally Nash. LEFT: Alongside the Wharf (ca. 1935),oil on board. Collection of Barbara Beinecke Spitler: BELow: Appleton's Farm (ca. 1935), oil on board. Collection of Nancy Newhouse.
the labeling of their work, into radical and con servative camps. Frank Swift Chase was at heart an hnpressionist, and he never strayed from its conservative ideals. He carried his paintbox into the outdoors and rendered nature, for the most part, the way he saw it. Tom Wolf assessed Chase's work as that of a romantic: Chase's paintings are the heirs of the North ern Romantic tradition, and, although Chase was more faithful to the scene as perceived, they evoke a spiritual kinship with Van Gogh, who also had an emotional response to nature and rendered it with expressive, tactile paint. "Though he appears to have used a palette knife," writes Gary Irving in the Vose catalogue of 1985, "closer inspection shows simple, abrupt, and intense brushwork. Chase's love of color meant love of paint draped like vines over forest or field." We know from his numerous oil paintings of Nantucket, and those of his students, that Chase indeed augmented his impasto tech nique with a palette knife, as well as with other tricks of wet-on-wet painting. He favored seascapes and harbor scenes, but traveled the entire island, from cobbled streets to open moorlands, in pursuit of what an island news paper deemed the work of a painter's painter: "His work is lively, colorful, and expressive of the high spirit that he possesses."
promise of the growth of a wholesome school of art." In 1930, his summer tuition was $25 for two weeks, or $40 for a month. Classes were limit ed to twenty students and "held out of doors, with three criticisms a week." He employed comparative criticism every second week, "enabling students to see the general class work." Chase's 1949 newspaper advertise ments read simply, "Class in Landscape Painting, July and August, Frank Swift Chase, 20 India Street, tel. 1035 (after June 20th)." In 1948 Chase officially joined the Artists Association by direct invitation of the execu tive board, conveyed through Elizabeth Saltonstall. He served as one of three jurors in that year for the prestigious "open' ' show, the big summer exhibition modeled after those at the Easy Street Gallery. The AAN treasured its relationship with Chase, and hosted solo exhi bitions of his work in both 1953 and 1954, his last active years on the island. In an interview held in August of 1953 and printed in the Inquirer and Mirror, Chase looked back on his Nantucket career with great fondness: "I really wouldn't trade my life, despite the ups and downs, for any other," he said benign ly as he traced the pattern of a sail against the shimmering sands of Coatue. "I can't think of a
better one." A letter from his Smithsonian archives, writ ten to Chase in the fall of 1953 by AAN secre tary Georgie Walling, hints at the concern of his fellow Nantucket artists. "Hi and how are you? We heard indirectly that you have been out painting every day and our souls rejoiced." The ravages of emphysema took their toll, though, and Chase retired to his mountain home for his final years. The local obituary from 1958 sums up that time: "When he returned to Woodstock to stay, Frank's chair was a focal point for his many friends. No matter how much he might be suffering there was no trace of it in the warmth of his greeting and in his vivid interest in the news they brought him." Frank Swift Chase was buried beside his faithful brother Ned and other members of the family in the famous Artists Cemetery at Woodstock, New York. ROBERT FRAZIER: is director of the Artists Association of Nantucket's Joyce and Seward Johnson Gallery, and author and editor of The Art Colony on Nantucket catalogue (2005). He is a three-time Rhysling Award winner for poetry, and author ofeight books of verse.
life Lived at the Fullest
Frank Chase always kept busy. In 1918, he worked painting murals for World War I expe ditionary forces in France. During World War II, he acted a while as the Red Cross Director of Personnel for Overseas, Atlantic Region. Still, he did not miss a beat in his teaching schedule. In 1940 he even founded the Sarasota School of Art on Longboat Key, Florida, which lasted until 1952 when his health prevented him from traveling so far south. On island he first exhibited in 1921 at the Coffin School, in a show mounted by Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin that included work by Coffin, Thomas Eakins, Annie Barker Folger, Harriet Barnes Thayer, and others. The Inquirer and Mirror remarked with considerable foresight on Chase and another instructor working at the time: "Under these two men, there is the Summer 2007 I 9
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BY
MARY JANE
HAMILTON
1 CT,.§rptember 1912, Maginel (Maggie-Nell) Wright Enright l Ba1·ney (1877-1966) purchased a house in the Town of ;_ Nantucket. For nearly thirty years thereafter this early t\n�ptieth-century artist portrayed the island's historic i�.i:chitecture, picturesque landscape, and quaint customs t�D)}lustrations for calendars, magazines, and books for children. Though the artist spent the greater portion of \that period in New York City, her work nonetheless con F)veyed a conscious preference for Nantucket's environs. Her . vistial representations of Nantucket documented the thencontemporary appearance of the island and many of its >familiar landmarks-in several cases prior to major additions or reconstructions. Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the youngest child of Rev. William C. (1825-1904) and Anna Lloyd Jones Wright (1838-1923). Maginel and her older sister Jane (18G9-1953) and brother Frank (1867-1959) moved, along with their parents, to Wisconsin in the spring of 1878. The Wrights settled in !Vladison, the state capital. where Anna and the children continued to reside following their parents' divorce in 1885.
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PORTRAIT COURTESY PORTER FAMILY
NANTUCKET IN THE ART OF MAGINEL WRIGHT
Later, after selling the family's Madison home, Anna and the two daughters moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where they lived in a house adja cent to the one Frank-who would later become the world-famous architect-con structed for himself and his new bride in 1889. Most years Maginel attended the local schools in Oak Park, but in the fall of 1896 she returned to Wisconsin for her senior year at _ the Hillside Home School, a rural boarding school run by her two Lloyd Jones aunts. § Integrated and coeducational long before a "progressive" educators endorsed such prac -< tices, the school followed then-unconvention al teaching methods. Science classes were ....,. i held outdoors, where plants and birds could � be studied in their native settings. This oppor .._ ______ ...; •------� tunity for close, firsthand observation would and a watercolor brush was often gripped prove valuable for Maginel's growing artistic between her teeth. Another, the one she was aspirations. using at the moment, was in her fingers. In the fall of 1897 Maginel enrolled at the Almost always there would be an aboriginal School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which stripe of paint or ink across her cheek, and had recently begun a program for students her whole attitude as she applied the who wanted to specialize in illustration. By the brush-then leaned away from the picture 1890s, Chicago had achieved a reputation as a and bent her headfrom side to side, narrowmajor graphic-arts center; nearly fifty publish ing her eyes at it, then leaned forward ers and printers in the city employed hun again-was the attitude of an artist at work; dreds of artists and designers. Consequently, alone, concentrated, for the moment wholly Maginel had no trouble securing a position self-sufficient. To a child this attitude is with a Chicago engraving firm that paid well sometimes disconcerting, and I did my enough that she could afford to take her share of whining and snuffiing at the door, mother to Europe for several months in 1903. trying to force her attention to myself. They visited Liverpool, Venice, Paris, and Sometimes, though not often, I was many other cities as well as Wales, where allowed to come in and watch for a Anna's extended family welcomed the young while. I liked to see the picture growing artist and her mother. A year after the on the board; I liked the little round European trip, Maginel married Walter "Pat" porcelain dishes in which fat worms of Enright (1875--1969), a talented graphic artist color had been squee:zed: crimson lake and young instructor at the Armour Institute, and cobalt blue and emerald green. whom she probably met when they were both Between 1902 and 1940, Maginel illusstudents at the Art Institute. trated more than forty children's books, From Chicago to New York including classics such as Heidi and Hans Three years after the birth of their daughter, Brinker, or The Silver Skates; several books Elizabeth (1907-1968), Maginel and Walter written by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Enright moved from Chicago to New York, author, L. Frank Baum, under his pseudo where he secured a studio in the Flatiron nym, Laura Bancroft; and others for the P. Building and she set up one in their seven-room E Volland Company. Her illustrations also apartment. Elizabeth's development from a appeared in Collier's, McClure's, Good curly-haired youngster to a beautiful young Housekeeping, The Ladies Home Journal, woman is recorded in dozens ofMaginel's illus and Woman's Home Companion. And for trations produced in her home studio. She later more than twenty years-at least 1918 to described watching Maginel work and serving 1940--she produced cover illustrations for as her mother's model: issues of Woman's World, a once-popular I watched her through the glass doors of the monthly magazine that at its prime enjoyed a little room she used as a studio, my nose circulation of over one million. Both Maginel and Walter Enright were suc snubbed resentfully against the pane, for I was forbidden to enter while she was at cessful in their professions and also enjoyed work. I can see her now as I saw her then, her socializing with their new friends, many of drawing board tilted against the worktable them fellow artists. These included Gelett before her. In her dark curly hair two or three Burgess, William Glackens, Maud Tousey pencils were stabbed like geisha ornaments, Fangel, and Wallace Morgan. In 1912, Maginel
!
Cover of Woman's World, October 1923, an autumn depiction of Auld Land Syne.
was elected to membership in the Society of illustrators during Charles Dana Gibson's term as president. And like many of their artist friends and professional colleagues, the Enrights sought an escape from New York's oppressive summer heat and headed north, seeking a place that offered cooler tempera tures, a seaside location, and picturesque sur roundings. They found it in Nantucket.
���S:Ji� A House Her Own
It is unclear whether the Enrights had visited Nantucket prior to the summer of 1912, but the timing of Maginel's purchase-at the end of that summer, not the beginning-would seem to suggest that she had gained some familiarity with Nantucket, responded favor ably to the island, and purchased the house with the expectation of spending time there in the future. Like previous owners dating back to 1887, the individuals from whom she bought the house did not live on the island but were fulltime residents of Connecticut. Its short-term-only occupancy by a series of off island owners during this extended period may have helped to ensure its remarkable state of preservation and thus its artistic appeal to the new owner.
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The house Maginel
acquired in 1912 was a two-and- I � a-half-story, shingle-surfaced, � � pre-Revolutionary War house, called "The Anchorage."
12
I
Historic Nantucket
The house Maginel acquired in 1912 was a two-and-a-half-story, shingle-surfaced, pre Revolutionary War, typical four-bay Nantucket house with a ridge chimney, a front door with a transom, twelve-over-twelve panes in the windows of major rooms, and nine-over-nine panes in less important rooms. Known locally as "The Anchorage," its unpretentious simplicity was consistent with the period when Quakerism dominated the island. Set close to but still separated from the
FAR LEFT: Oldest House from 1917 calendar (courtesy of Gillham family). LEFT: Auld Lang Syne from 1918 calendar (cour tesy of Gillham family). BELOW: from Honey Beor ( 1923) by Dixie Willson, illustrated by artist.
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LEFT: Rainbow Fleet cover of Womans Home Companion, July 1932, and H. Marshall Gardiner postcard of the Rainbow Fleet (S7884). ABOVE: Congregational Church on cover of Woman's Home Companion, December 1926, and postcard of Congregational Church (P 1790 I).
Summer 2007 I 13
NANTUCKET IN THE ART OF MAGINEL WRIGHT
street by the locally favored ship-rail style fences found throughout Nantucket Town, the house then had a pent roof (later removed) over the front door-painted blue-green while Maginel owned the house-and a hatch in the roof that provided light to the attic, where she would later set up a summer studio. There, she would produce dozens of illustrations inspired by her new summer locale.
Nantucket Places and People
One of the most identifiable buildings in Maginel's Nantucket-inspired work is Auld Lang Syne, originally built as a seasonal fish ing shack in 'Sconset, a small village on the eastern shore of the island. Reported to be the oldest surviving structure (1675) on Nan tucket, its irregular, sagging-roof profile, ridge chimney, and frontal "wart" extension as well as the location, type, and number of windows; shutters, and rustic front door were captured in several illustrations. These include a 1918 calendar, a 1923 magazine cover, and the 1923 Honey Bear, a children's book written by Dixie Willson, the sister of Meredith Willson (1902--84), who authored the book, music, and lyrics of The Music Man. The small-for mat Honey Bear was a particular childhood favorite of the writer Tom Wolfe. Another familiar Nantucket building is the Jethro Coffin House (or Oldest House), built in 1686 on Sunset Hill and owned since 1923 by the Nantucket Historical Association. Maginel's inclusion of this well-known local
One of the most
identifiable buildings in Maginel's Nantucket-inspired work is Auld Lang Syne, originally built as a seasonal fishing shack in 'Sconset, a small village on the eastern shore of
the island.
landmark in her 1917 calendar underscores the appearance of the house prior to the 1928 restoration, during which an earlier shed-roof extension was replaced. A vintage postcard shows a cultivated area in the foreground that replicates a similar feature in her illustration, but there are no corresponding apple or other flowering fruit trees. The artist may have added them to provide a welcome bit of color to the otherwise dark-hued sky and house. Her use of diagonal slashes to convey the intensity of the spring rainstorm suggests the 14 I Historic Nantucket
similar use of this artistic device in Japanese woodblock prints, particularly in the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Hiroshige was a favorite of Frank Lloyd Wright's, who over decades several acquired, sold, and exhibited hundreds of Japanese prints and gave his sister those displayed on the walls of her New York and Nantucket homes. Two of Nantucket's religious structures, the 1834 First Congregational Church on CentreStreet and 1809 Unitarian Universalist Church (originally the Second or South Congregational Church) on Orange Street, also appear in Maginel's illus trations. Ties to the first example may not be readily apparent to newer island residents, however, since her representations of the Carpenter Gothic-style structure predate the restoration of the church tower in 1968. Visible from the front bedroom window of Maginel's house on North Water Street, the church appears in her 1917 calendar and the 1918 "Follow the Pied Piper" poster, one of three that she prepared as part of a group effort by members of the New York Society of lliustrators to design recruiting and other war related posters during and after World War I. The church also appears in her covers for the November 1926 Womans World and December 1926 Womans Home Companion, while the Unitarian tower and clock establish the set ting of her December 1925 Womans World cover. The artist's signature on the first three items was Enright and those on the last three, Barney; in between the two groups Maginel obtained a divorce from Walter Emight and later married Hiram Barney Jr., a prominent lawyer and international financier who died unexpectedly in July 1925. Creating illustrations for Downright Dencey, a historical children's novel honored as a run ner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1928 and reissued again in 2003, provided a unique opportunity for Maginel to draw on her knowledge of Nantucket. The setting for the book is Nantucket Island, where the author, Caroline Dale Snedeker (1871-1956), spent her first summer in the early 1920s accompa nied by her husband, an Episcopal clergyman and one-time bishop of the New York diocese, who died shortly thereafter. Following his death, Snedeker returned to the island and
·,�> •
Elihu Coleman House ( 1722) on Hawthorne Lane, from Downright Dencey ( 1927/2003)
,
by Caroline Dale Snedeker; illustrated by artist (courtesy of Gillham family}, and H. Marshall Gardiner postcard (PC Hawthorne-9).
stayed in the same room where they had stayed and she completed writing the book about a young Quaker girl named Dencey Coffyn and an orphan boy called Sam Jetsam. Concerned that the text not betray the author's off-island status, Snedecker shared the manuscript with her friend Mary Eliza (Mollie) Starbuck. Upon noticing in the text that a thrifty housewife was to dispense pound-rounds to a transient sailor, the well known Nantucket resident explained that the items were delicacies reserved only for special occasions and that a more appropriate treat for the sailor would be ginger cookies. Maginel's color and black-and-white illus trations for Snedeker's book portray-with only a few deft strokes of her pen and brush some of the island's most well-known natural areas and historic buildings. These include ships docked at the wharf, vintage windmills, sand dunes along the north and south shores of the island, the Elihu Coleman house and Quaker Meeting House, as well as views of Main Street and the Union Street curve. Several illustrations correspond closely to H. Marshall Gardiner's (1884-1942) photographs and postcards documenting the Nantucket summer fetes. The first such event was held in August 1921 along upper Main Street from the Pacific Bank to Monument Square and fea tured historical costumes and tableaux. The event was initiated by Maginel's longtime friend Austin Strong (1881-1952). a well known author, playwright, Nantucket booster, and step-grandson ofRobert Louis Stevenson. That fete and subsequent ones sought to raise funds for the local hospital. Mary and Austin Strong were among Maginel's closest friends in Nantucket as well as in New York. They visited each other's homes, enjoyed meals together, and corre sponded by mail if not in the same locale. When staying in Nantucket, the Strongs lived
only a few blocks from Maginel in their own two-and-a-half-story, pre-Revolutionary War shingled house at 5 Quince Street, originally built for David Hussey. Their Greek Revival doorway with sidelights (added at a later peri od)-and sporting its summer shutters served as the backdrop for Maginel's June 1919 Woman'.s World magazine cover. Austin Strong also figured in another of Maginel's magazine covers. For most readers of the July 1932 issue of Womans Home Companion, the colorful sails and youthful sailors on the cover may have seemed like an exaggeration on the part of the artist. Nantucket residents, however, would certain ly have recognized her illustration as the Rainbow Fleet, Beetle catboats with brightly dyed sails. Beginning in 1926, Strong, a founder of the Nantucket Yacht Club, provided sailing instructions for his nieces and nephews as well as the children of local and summer vis itors at his boathouse on the Old North Wharf. There, seated in a catboat suspended from davits, Strong's young pupils learned the basics of maneuvering a sailboat while still on dry land.
Challenges and New Opportunities
When both the Depression and changes in the style of illustrations preferred by pub lishers curtailed Maginel's commissions during the late 1920s and 1930s, her work underwent a major transformation, as evi denced by the 1932 cover showing the Rainbow Fleet. Her later illustrations fea tured patches of flat, bold colors and fewer and larger compositional elements. Al though she would continue to produce occasional illustrations until the early 1940s, the demise in 1941 of Womans World, a magazine for which she had produced cov ers for more than two decades, eliminated what had been a regular source of income. In response, she redirected her insatiable creativity into new outlets. During the late 1930s Maginel began to substitute stitches of yarn for strokes of paint. She devised a new term, "long" or "longue point," to distinguish the resulting pieces from the traditional gros- or petit point needlework. She also developed her own line of custom embroidered, silk-lined felt jackets and slippers, which were sold at America House in New York. Maginel also began to produce jewel-embellished felt flats-similar to those now appearing in fashion magazines-sold through the Capezio firm. The shoes proved so popular that she had to hire assistants in order to meet the demand.
Cover of Woman's World, June 1919, showing doorway of 5 Quince Street (Austin Strong House) with summer shutters.
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A New Generation Responds to Nantucket
Maginel's eldest grandson came to spend part of the summer in Nantucket in 1938, which may have been her last summer on the island. A year later, in September 1939, she sold the house on North Water Street to off-island owners from Connecticut. In 1940, two events took place that underscored the passing of Nantucket's influence from one generation to the next: an exhibition of Maginel's most recent work in New York and the publication of a new children's book written and illustrated by her daughter, Elizabeth Enright (Gillham). A majority of the sixteen new "long-point" pieces Maginel exhibited at the Marie Sterner Gallery in the spring of 1940 bore a direct rela tionship to identifiable landscape and archi tectural features of her new summer locale: the maternal Lloyd Jones family valley in Iowa County, Wisconsin. After selling her house in Nantucket, Maginel had begun staying-and working on her "long points"-at Tan-y-deri (under the oaks), the home of her sister Jane, designed by their brother Frank for the hilltop adjoining his home, Taliesin (shining brow). Maginel's daughter, Elizabeth, who had vis ited the same Wisconsin valley as a child, incorporated those experiences in a 1939 Newbery Award-winning book, Thimble Summer, her second. For her third book, The SealsAllAround, published in 1940, Elizabeth drew upon still-vivid memories of her moth er's Nantucket house and her own childhood experiences on the island. The main charac ter, a young orphan named Mabeth Kimball, moves to Nantucket (identified as Pokenick Island) to live with her aunt Belinda, whose house closely resembled the Water Street
i §
2
house in which the author had once lived. Both had an old-fashioned square grand piano in the living room, another was said to be haunted by an elderly woman's spirit (as was the second living room at 23 North Water), and young Mab slept in a four-poster bed nearly identical to the one in Maginel's Nantucket bedroom. Mab frequently visited a local antique shop called the Curiosity Shop where she sat around the pot-bellied stove lis tening to the proprietor's tales, just as Elizabeth may have visited Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, once located in the former Amelia Coffin House on India Street. As in real life, island residents in the book wrapped their boxwood in burlap to pre�ent winter� �d were accustomed to heanng the Umtanan church bell ringing fifty-two times at seven, noon, and again at nine every night. These and similar details in Elizabeth's book seemed believable because they were drawn from the author's own personal experiences. In his introduction to Maginel's 1940 exhibi tion brochure, Austin Strong described his old friend's newest works: "With strong, sure strokes she makes us see nature alive and breathing through brooding hills, wild skies, and the upturned earth of ploughed land. She makes us feel the heat rising from the freshly cut wheat fields . Maginel Wright Barney has caught a living rainbow and somehow woven it into patterns for our delight." Strong's description referred to Maginel's recent long point needlework pieces inspired by Wis consin subjects. The artist's lifelong practice of responding to her surroundings-whatever the locale-and incorporating that imagery in her work is evident in the nearly three decades of her drawing inspiration from Nantucket. MARY JANE HAMILTON: An independent scho lar who did her graduate work in architectural history, Mary Jane Hamilton has been doing research on Frank Lloyd Wright and his Lloyd Jones family for more than thirty years and has written extensively and organiud several exhibi tions on the work of Wright and his sister, Maginel. Several years ago Hamilton visited Nantucket and spent time identifying the build ings and locales depicted in Maginel'.s work.
Author's note: The author is especiallygrateful to
Patricia F,gan Butler; Dr. George Butterwonh, and Nicholas Gillhamfor theirassistance in preparing this article. The author would be interested in learning the whereabouts of any Maginel items for possible use in a future exhibition and com rehensive catalogue ofher worlc. Summer 2007 I 15
REMEMBERING ARTIST
ROBERT]. FREIMAN BY
RENE LAPIERRE
Robert J. Freiman (1917-91) was a fascinating and talented man, and I called him my friend. When I first heard of the NHA'.s 2007 summer exhibition, The Nantucket Art Colony, 1920-45, I immediately thought of Bob and the work he had produced on Nantucket during a lengthy career and as a founding member (1945) of the Artists Association of Nantucket. I had seen one of his portraits in an earlier AAN exhibition, FoundingMembers, mounted in 1995. At that time I felt that more of his work should have been included. This was especially the case as the work displayed was done in a very realistic style, not typical of Bob's later, and in my view, more characteristic work Bob Freiman and I first became acquainted in 1971 when I attended one of his openings. I was taken by his wonderful palette, exciting use of line, and unusual approach to his subject matter. After acquiring his impressive watercolor, Nantucket Holly, I was hooked. I began to look for more pieces to add to my collection. I had become a Freiman fan, and a friendship was born. 16 I Historic Nantucket
BO
o
K
REVIEW
Michael P. D er
A thoughtful history of whaling inAmerica Leviathan: The History ofWhaling in America,
by Eric Jay Dolin, 2005 NHA Verney Scholar.*
"For more information on the E. Geoffrey and Elizabeth Thayer Verney Fellowship, please log onto www. nha.orgllibrarylvemey. html. Leviathan: The history. American maritime history seems History ofWhaling always to have had its lay enthusiasts along in America comes with its serious scholars. It has never had its very close to ac complishing a near-impossible task, which is the documentation of American whaling in one volume. Unless one wants to wind up with a book like one of those absurdly
champion, however, one who could formulate a thesis of American history based upon the extraordinary success and influence of its mar itime commerce. It has never had its Frederick Jackson Turner (The Frontier in American History, New York, 1935). The reality that ante bellum America was a maritime nation has never seeped into the American conscious ness. Over the years, of course, many authors have written on American whaling and maritime history, but Laing seemed to have captured something popular, and once he captured it he gave it back to the reader. Dolin's Leviathan does something similar. He has captured the spirit of American whaling history in words in much the way that Laing did it with pictures. As part of a laudable series of whaling and mar itime titles published by W W Norton & Company over the last decade or so, Leviathan attempts to consolidate the subject of American whaling. In his introduction, Dolin writes:
thick 1880s volumes like The History of Bristol County or Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World, American whaling history in its entirety is at the very least a two-volume endeavor. Nonetheless, as far as this subject is concerned, Eric Jay Dolin has written a thor ough overview. What he has accomplished is reminiscent, in spirit at least, of the work of an earlier popular historian. There was once a scholar of American mar itime history named Alexander Laing (1903--76). Throughout his life he was a lot of things including a newscaster, an ordinary Thousands of American ships manned by tens of thousands of men killed hundreds of seaman, a poet, a college professor, and, in a fascinating way, a maritime historian. He thousands of whales, which were processed wrote a book for American Heritage called into products and profits that in turn created great fortunes and spurred the formation Seafaring America (New York, 1974). It is an and growth of the nation. immensely satisfying book, though not a terri bly important one. It is such because its Based upon this sturdy foundation, Dolin chronological format and great illustrations present a clear picture of an extremely impor systematically proceeds with the chronologi tant but often neglected aspect of American cal analysis of his sources, supporting and
18
I
Historic Nantucket
ABOVE: Looking for whales from the crosstrees of a whaling schooner (F6 I 68).
underscoring his primary thesis. The book is in three parts: "Part One: Arrival and Ascent, 1614-1774" covers much of the subject also handled by Alexander Starbuck in his 1876 History of the American Whale Fishery, but Dolin writes about aspects of early American whaling that Starbuck simply could not cover. There are resources available today that were not available in 1876, such as broad and consolidated collections and keyword searching capability, and Dolin availed himself thoroughly of those advantages. The story of seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Long Island whaling and its relationship to the larger development of the industry in New England is clearly outlined. The whole candle trade of the mid-to-late eighteenth century, for instance, he covers with insight; not even Elmo Hohman in The American Whaleman (New
ABOVE LEFT: The whaleship Wanderer trying out (rendering blubber) at night (P 15070). ABOVE RIGHT: Cutting in (butchering) the whale
(Pl4845).
York, 1928) analyzes this subject to the same extent or as well. Dolin culls and consolidates much of this problematic early-American whaling history, and as there is (apparently) only so much original material preserved from this early period, its examination and further public attention is important for the reader to know. However, Dolin generously shares the sources that exist, and in many ways this is the most important section of the book. The form ative years, the skilled facility with which American colonists pursued the industry, the imperative of their trade with England, and the impact of the American Revolution are all aspects of American history that prefigure the country's exceptional maritime prowess later in the nineteenth century. The second and third parts of the book, the years of ascendancy and decline, 1774-1924, cover the period of American whaling history best documented and most commonly encountered in other books on whaling. As an overview, those two parts hit all of the high lights including the opening of Japan; the famous mutinies; the plight of whalemen and their wives; and the panorama of fascinating, gripping, and romantic tales commonly asso ciated with the subject. As in Part One, he care fully cites his sources, and the footnotes are a feature that will make this book extremely valuable to researchers for decades to come. He cites everything, and his bibliography is an extremely good overview.
The shortcomings of the book are mostly in the illustrations. They are all good illustra tions but they do not push the text, support the history, or even fit themselves properly into the chronology. The pictures of American whaling are of equal importance to the texts, and in certain cases, like the scrimshaw of Frederick Myrick, even more so. The same can be said for the development of American whaling technology, which paralleled, and was integral to, the success of the industry. The patent drawings of American whalecraft, for instance, speak volumes about the inven tiveness of the craftsmen involved in whaling and the necessities that drove them. The dust-jacket image ought to have been American. Either of the 1835 American whal ing prints by Cornelius Hulsart or one of the Currier & Ives versions of the French print by Ambrose Louis Garneray that was used on the dust jacket would be preferable to illustrate the history of whaling in America. One of the Benjamin Russell prints, for instance A Ship
on the North-West Coast Cutting In Her Last Right Whale, would have been superb. It was
Cooper Busch, in
Whaling Will Never Do for Me
(L e x i n g t o n , Kentucky, 1994), based the major ity of his social history of the American whale man on primary manuscript materials. Lisa Norling, author ERIC JAY DOLIN of Captain Ahab Had a Wife (Chapel Hill, 2000), could only have accomplished her whaling history based upon primary materials, as much of what she wrote about never made it past the personal diaries and letters of the women who penned them. There is a good reason for Dolin's not par ticularly concentrating on such materials. It is not that sort of a book. He is not examining the details of American whaling; he is writing on a broader scale, and he succeeds in com pacting the history while maintaining its inti macy. The examination and dissemination of manuscript sources, pictorial sources, and the "stuff" of American whaling constitute the bulk of the material that pushes this history into a second volume. To be sure, Leviathan is as comprehensive, thoughtful, and useful a history as has come along in many, many years. It should be included in every college and university library in the country and at the elbow of every serious student of the sub ject matter.
a missed opportunity to put those materials four-square in the center of the history where they belong. He has included one picture, however, that may well be one of the earliest images of whaling in North America. It is a detail of a manuscript map of 1722 showing whaling off Gardiner's Island, Long Island. The map is in the collection of the Easthampton, New York, Library. For all of his detailed research, Dolin never examined the manuscript sources in the way that some of his predecessors did. Elmo Hohman, for instance, utilized manuscript business records to formulate his history of M1cHAEL P. DYER is the librarian and maritime labor in American whaling. The British writer historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Summer 2007
I
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By
TH E
WAY
Robert D. Felc
Sankaty Light: "I see Sankaty, the Illariner's friend!" The future ofNantucket's "blazing star" see Sankaty, the mariner's • Lighthouse placed on National Register of Historic Places in 1987 friend! Who would be the first to / say this as we headed eastward • Ownership transfered from the federal government through the NHA to the 'Sconset over Bean Hill on the Milestone Trust in 2007 Road? An annual ritual repeated upon arrival
on the island at the onset of summer days and weeks in 'Sconset, it meant we had arrived. The beautiful lone structure atop Sankaty Head bluff stands as a sentinel for all who approach. It has done so for over 157 years. Will it continue for future generations to be the Rocket Llght, Nantucket's "blazing star?" Or will Sankaty suffer the same fate as its north ern sister at Great Point and become a pile of brick and mortar rubble at the edge of the ninety-foot bluff? Many stories can be told about Sankaty Head Llghthouse, majestically and stoically in its place at Sankaty Station since its construc tion in 1849-why she came to be, who lived with her and managed her lights over the years, who looked to her for guidance and safe passage through the treacherous shoals of the New England Atlantic, what she has faced at the fury of Mother Nature's relentless attack below her magnificent brick apron, and who has hugged her at sunset with a prayer or wish.
Sankaty Head Lightlwuse vital statistics: • Erected in 1849-50, at a cost of $10,330 • Origi,nally sixty feet tall but raised to seventy feet in 1888 • Illuminated by second-order Fresnel lens and a single-wick whale-oil lamp in 1850 • Visible twenty-four miles at sea • 450 tons • 158 feet above sea level-the station and south-abutting property contain the highest elevations on the island • Light completes its rotation in 7.5 seconds • 1933-converted to electric light • 1944-U. S. Coast Guard took over manage ment of the lighthouse station • Automated in 1965 20
I Historic Nantucket
The storyline that took front stage in the final decade of the twentieth century and continues to grab the headlines today is the destructive and persistent march of Mother Nature against the eastern face of the Nantucket landmass. Images from the 1890s right through the 1950s show a lovely, vegetative bank with a gradual walkable incline and inviting wooden stair ways to the picturesque sandy beach below the Sankaty Head bluff. Then something dramatically changed. Because of extreme erosive conditions at the toe of the bluff and at the bluff's peak, the great lighthouse is now in jeopardy of being beyond our ability to save. Simply put, saving the light means lifting it from its 157-year-old cradle and moving it with great care and skill to a safe new site to the northwest. Waiting another year could render such an undertaking beyond twenty-first-century engineering capabilities and the philanthropy of our pocketbooks.
ABOVE: Sankaty in peril: Bluff erosion after the April 2007 storm.
Mother Nature lead us to the newest story line-the great Nantucket preservation move ment. What community in the United States has embraced preservation of historic dwellings and structures with greater commit ment than Nantucket? While Sankaty Head Llghthouse was the third and final lighthouse erected on Nantucket, today it stands as the only origi nal-its bricks and mortar have stood as a great sentinel since the beam was first lighted in February 1850. Preserving the signature red striped lighthouse, truly an island icon, has to be a top priority for twenty-first-century Nantucket. Yes, Nantucket, like many communities, Sankaty Head erosion vital statistics: faces difficult social and economic issues that • 1850-280 feet from the bluff's edge to challenge its citizens to plan in creative ways lighthouse; 275 feet in 1894 for the future. This does not lessen the respon • 1977--down to 173 feet sibility of our community to save and preserve • Between 1977 and 1999 an additional 78 feet a great lighthouse for future generations; it were lost, bringi,ng the distance to 95 feet reminds us of our common heritage and link • Current distance as of summer 2007 is to the sea that surrounds us. Whether looking approximately 76 feet= a loss ofjust over 200 westward from the fishing banks off feet over the 157 years Nantucket's east coast or peering eastward • Annual average loss of 3 feet over past 30 years over Nantucket's grand moors, the mariner's • Between June 1991 and July 1992 a total of friend will be there to welcome and comfort 17.1 feet eroded as a result ofsuccessive the soul.
nor'easters and a hurricane
ROBERT o. FELCH has been president of the The glorious history of the light and its dedi- 'Sconset Trust board of directors since 2004 and cated keepers set against the challenges of is a year-round resident of'Sconset.
NHA 2007 Annual Meeting Hear ye, hear ye! For the first time since the museum reopened, Gosnell Hall served as the set ting for the Annual Meeting, held on Friday, July 13, 2007. Board President E. GeoffreyVerney presided over the meeting, which included reports highlighting events of the past year. Vice President Melissa D. Philbrick, on behalfof the Nominating Committee, presented the new slate of trustees, which included Elizabeth T. Peek, elected to her first term; Nina S. Hellman, Bruce A. Percelay, and Bette M. Spriggs, elected for second terms. Verney acknowledged and thanked outgoing and past trustees, advisors, and Heritage Society members. A motion to approve the proposed revision of the bylaws was passed unanimously. Executive Director William J. Tramposch reviewed highlights ofhis first year at the NHA.
ABOVE: Eileen McGrath and Reggie Levine.
The meeting concluded with a gam on the NantucketArt Colony, 1920-1945, led by Reggie Levine, with assistance from Eileen McGrath. All in attendance agreed that the gam offered enjoyable glimpses into Nantucket's artistic past.
LEFT: Trustee Bette Spriggs and her husband, Frank. CENTER: NHA President E. Geoffrey Verney welcomes members to the I 13th Annual Meeting. RIGHT: Miles Carlisle and G. Palmer LeRoy.
The Nantucket Historical Association Wins Prestigious Publications Awards The NHA received three publication awards from the New England Museum Association (NEMA) Competition this spring. The 2007 Competition received 238 publications sub missions from 81 museums in 22 different categories; major art and historic museums throughout New England were among the competitors. The awards recognize excel lence in design, production, and effective communication in all aspects ofmuseum publishing: "The judges were extremely impressed with the high quality ofdesign and effective communication with each of the NHA submissions." Nantucket:ers & Th.eir Pets-2007 Business Member Calendar received third place in the "Supplementary Materials" cate gory. The 2006 summer exhibition catalogue Signs ofthe 'limes received an honorable mention in the "Exhibition Catalogues"
entry. In the category ofEducational Publications, Materials, and Kits, the 1800 House Early-AmericanArts & Crafts 2006 Course Catawgue was awarded an honor able mention. Wmning publications will be exhibited in November at the NEMA annual conference in Portland, Maine. The NHA was the also the recipient oftwo top honors in the June issue of Cape Cod Life's Best of the Cape & Islands Readers Survey.
Voted Best Nantucket Museum, the Whaling Museum received the gold award, and a gold medal in the category ofBest Rainy Day Activity. The Whaling Museum was also awarded a silver medal in the Best Kids Activity category. Under the category Best Place for a Wedding, the Whaling Museum was voted Editor's Choice. The Museum Shop was also the Editor's Choice
for Best Gift Shop, a fitting award given the recent ren ovations ofthe shop. "We've added glass doors from the museum into the shop, making the entrance more user-friendly," said Georgina Wmton, shop manager. For gift ideas, contact Georgina Wmton at gwinton@nha.org. The Whaling Museum is also a perfect set ting for private parties-from small, intimate gatherings to as many as five-hundred guests, and is a beautiful location for any party. Contact Susan Beaumont at sbeau mont@nha.org for more information. Summer 2007 I
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•• News Notes & Highlights
The NHA and Ralph Lauren partner in restoration of the Gardiner's Comer Compass Rose mural Ralph Lauren and the Nantucket Historical Association are honored to be
stewards of the Gardiner's Comer mural. H. Marshall Gardiner designed the mural based on historial compass rose designs. It adorned the side of his Main Street photography and gift shop and soon became a beloved Nantucket landmark. The restoration was performed by specialists from the firm of Milner and Carr Conservation. Ralph Lauren has created a line of products-shirts and hats for men, women, children, and infants-featuring the Compass Rose design. All proceeds from the sale of Compass Rose products benefit the NHA. To purchase Compass Rose products, please visit the NHA Museum Shop at 11 Broad Street or Ralph Lauren at 16 Main Street, or see the NHA web site at www.nha.org.
For more information about this partnership, go to http://entertain ment.polo.corn/magazine/editorial/su07/compass_rose.asp.
Early American Arts and Crafts at the historic 1800 House The NHA is dedicated to encouraging lifelong learning steeped in Nantucket's rich arts-and-crafts tradition. 2007 marks the third season for the Early American arts and crafts classes at the NHA's historic 1800 House, located at 4 Mill Street. Beginning in May and running through mid-October, over thir ty courses are being offered in centuries-old techniques taught by artisans from Nantucket and throughout New England. Class size is limited in some instances, and reservations must be made in advance, but there has been wonderful support for this worthy branch of the NHA's mission of providing year-round learning and engaging opportunities. Please visit www.nha.org/ 1800house.
EARLY AMERICAN ARTS & CRAFTS C at the historic I800 House
ABOVE: Floorcloths
LEFT TO RIGHT: Sailor's Valentines, Bentwood Willow Chairs, Primitive Mermaid Murals
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Historic Nantucket
Greg Hill donates an original painting to NHA For the second consecutive year, Nantucket artist and longtime NHA supporter G. S. Hill donated an original oil painting that was auctioned at the 2007Wme Festival's Wme Auction Dinner, a benefit for the NHA. The oil-on-linen paint ing, Harbor Life Circa 1830 Nantucket, shows the Nantucket waterfront as it would have appeared in the early 1800s. "The NHA provides such a strong link to the island's past and is such an important part of our community," said Judi Hill. "You are accomplishing so many great things; we are amazed at the wealth of wonderful year-round programs you are now offering-and are delighted to offer our continued support with this donation of Greg's painting." Greg has spent time in the NHA's Research Library to confirm the historic authenticity for his work. AT LEFT: Greg Hill and Denis Toner of the Nantucket Wine Festival.
NHA New Hires
Premiere of Evening Walking Tours and the Macy-Christian House Reopens
In March, Ema Hudson was hired as assis tant to special events manager Stacey W. Stuart. Hudson graduated from Syracuse University with a B.FA. in art history; she joins the NHA with a strong background in organizational skills and event planning. She will work closely with Stuart, who is responsi ble for organizing the NHA's major fund-rais ing events, including the August Antiques Show and the Festival ofWreaths and Trees, among others. During the month of July, Beth Moyer was hired as assistant membership coordinator. Moyer recently received an MA. in museolo gy from the University ofWashington in Seattle. Prior to attending graduate school, Moyer lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, and worked at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she also found time to volunteer at the Paul Revere House Museum in Boston. Moyer graduated with a major in archaeolo gy/ anthropology and a minor in applied mathematics from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, and attendedWesttown School in Westtown, Pa.
In early July, the NHA introduced evening walking tours in the Old Historic District of downtown Nantucket. Offered Monday-Saturday, each tour lasts eighty minutes and includes the story of the rise and fall of the whaling industry, the subsequent tum-of-the-century rise of tourism, and concludes with Nantucket's current status as a world-class resort destination. The tour now includes a visit to the historic Macy-Christian House, which was reopened to the public this spring.
Ema Hudson
Beth Moyer
NHA Swnmer Interns
A Swnmer Camp for Kids!
The NHA launched its first museum education internship program with five students representing Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and California. During their three-month stay on Nantucket, the interns acquired valuable hands-on experience in the museum profession. Working in a collaborative environment with NHA staff, the interns facilitated a wide array of programs, including: Art Colony Family Day, Camp Discovery, and afternoon Discovery Room Hands-On-History projects with museum visitors. Each intern studied an NHA historic property in detail, made recommendations for improved interpretation and signage at their assigned site, and presented their findings to the NHA's department heads and Executive Director Bill Tramposch.
Summer time and the living is busy. To help keep youngsters engaged and happy, the education department presented three new ways to bring island history to life for children at the elementary-school level. Camp Discovery is a four-day learning adventure introducing elemen tary-school-age children to the fascinating world of Nantucket's past. Designed for children between the ages of six and twelve, with multiple learning styles in mind, these four-day camps provide numerous hands-on activities that take advantage of the NHA's extraordinary resources. Campers explore the whaling museum and historic sites, participate in engaging projects, and immerse themselves in one of three themes-colonial life, whaling, and hunting for history. Summer 2007 I 23
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