Extraordinary Nantucket Women, at the Nantucket Whaling Museum

This 2018 performance at the Nantucket Whaling Museum highlights the lives of fifteen extraordinary women from the 17th through the 20th century on Nantucket. From its earliest days, dating back to the mid-1600s, Nantucketers have made their own way in the world. This is particularly true of the women who made their homes here. From the outset, men and women worked equally hard to make the fledgling settlement survive. When whaling became the dominant industry, whaling husbands would leave the island for years at a time, often, 3-5 years. At any given time, the women probably outnumbered the men four to one. Women had to fill the breach and did so in remarkable ways, raising their large families, managing households and running businesses in town, and found the time to become involved in the social movements of the day.

William Oliver Stevens, an American author and professor, wrote, “Indeed, it is probable that no other community in America of the size of Nantucket has ever given the country so many extraordinary women.”

The notable women include:
Mary Coffin Starbuck (1645-1717)
Abiah Folger Franklin (1667-1752)
Kezia Folger Coffin (1772-1798)
Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880)
Eliza Ann Chase McCleave (1811-1895)
Susan Veeder (1816-1897)
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)
Rebecca Ann Johnson (1829-??)
Mary Ellen Pleasant (ca. 1812-1904)
Eliza Starbuck Barney (1802-1889)
Anna Gardner (1816-1901)
Lydia Folger Fowler, M.D. (1822-1879)
Margaret Getchell (1841-1880)
Hanna Monaghan (1889-1972)
Mildred Jewitt “Madaket Millie” (1907-1990)

Also featuring the "Nantucket Girl's Song" based on a witty poem found in the journal kept by Eliza Brock, wife of Peter C. Brock, master of the Nantucket ship Lexington on a whaling voyage from May 1853 to June 1856. It sums up how many women felt about their husbands being off on whaling voyages for years at a time. Songwriter Susan J. Berman set this poem to music and added a verse of her own.