Nantucket Atheneum Podcast

The 23rd Annual Thanksgiving Cold Turkey Plunge to benefit the Weezie Library for Children is just around the corner. In this three-part special special edition of the podcast, Janet talks with the development team to find what it takes to pull off this event year after year.

If you want to get involved in this year's Plunge, visit our website at https://nantucketatheneum.org/turkey-plunge-2024/

If you have done the plunge in the past and want to share your story, you can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected]. Please put "Turkey Plunge 2024" in the subject line.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks for Director of Development Maggie O'Reilly, Marketing and Design specialist Anastasia Tumash, and Head of Outreach Lisa Lothian. 

The 23rd Annual Thanksgiving Cold Turkey Plunge to benefit the Weezie Library for Children is just around the corner. In this three-part special special edition of the podcast, Janet talks with the development team to find what it takes to pull off this event year after year.

If you want to get involved in this year's Plunge, visit our website at https://nantucketatheneum.org/turkey-plunge-2024/

If you have done the plunge in the past and want to share your story, you can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected]. Please put "Turkey Plunge 2024" in the subject line.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks for Director of Development Maggie O'Reilly, Marketing and Design specialist Anastasia Tumash, and Head of Outreach Lisa Lothian. 

The 23rd Annual Cold Turkey Plunge to benefit the Weezie Library for Children is just around the corner. In this three-part special special edition of the podcast, Janet talks with the development team to find what it takes to pull off this event year after year.

If you want to get involved in this year's Plunge, visit our website at https://nantucketatheneum.org/turkey-plunge-2024/

If you have done the plunge in the past and want to share your story, you can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected]. Please put "Turkey Plunge 2024 in the subject line."

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is written, hosted and edited by Janet Forest. Special thanks for Director of Development Maggie O'Reilly, Marketing and Design specialist Anastasia Tumash, and Head of Outreach Lisa Lothian. 

Jim and Janet are back with a bonus episode about Lafcadio Hearn, a curious character that was among the Americans who became enamored with Japanese culture. He is a man of many worlds and many cultures, who found his true identity in Japan.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Thank you to Reference Library Associate James Grieder for joining us for this discussion. Special thanks to Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• As we can see in this picture taken with his wife, Setsuko Koizumi, (1868-1932) , Lafcadio Hearn was almost always photographed in profile. 
  
  
• The reference to one of Hearn’s translators as “Kakuzo’s brother” is to Yoshisaburo Kakuzo, sibling of Okakura Kakuzo, who we met in our discussion of William Bigelow. (While it’s unlikely they met in person, Bigelow and Hearn moved in the same circles.) 
  
  
• In November 1906, the same year he published “The Way of Tea”, and had joined the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at Bigelow’s request, Okakura Kakuzo wrote a letter to the New York Times defending Hearn and his writings, saying “….We may differ with his philosophy or quarrel with his deductions, but of all foreign authors he has reached nearest the heart of our people…” 
  
  
• Setsuko Koizumi published a loving memoir of her life with Lafcadio Hearn in 1918, filled with insights into his personality, their working process, and family life. 
  
  
• Hearn’s essay on Jiujutsu, was published as Chapter VII of “Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan” (1895). · TBH some of the variations bring the count down a bit, but a Keyword search in CLAMS on Oct 8, 2024, with “Lafcadio Hearn” yielded 100 items. 
  
  
• Watchers of Shogun would benefit from reading his essay, “A Conservative”, included in Hearn’s “Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life”
  
  
• Former Atheneum Staff Member Liz Kelly talked about Lafcadio Hearn in our virtual program "Treasures from the Vault" which can be found on our YouTube channel.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

In this final episode of season 6, Jim and I invite our colleague James Grieder to join us to discuss The Great Wave by Christopher Banfey. James has personal connection to one of the characters featured in Banfey's book.

This is the last episode in this season, but be sure to click that subscribe button, os you don't miss any bonus episodes and future seasons!

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Thank you to Reference Library Associate James Grieder for joining us for this discussion. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header. 

• Google Books has online versions of Edward Morse’s Japan Diaries: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
  
  
• Independent Researcher Hina Hirayama recently transcribed the original diaries for her paper The Self-Fashioning of E. S. Morse: A Comparison of Japan Day by Day and Its Primary Source . She demonstrates that Morse’s “…authorial voice sought to accommodate the historical, social, and personal changes that had occurred since his travels…”, and, like many travel documentaries today, marginalized his support network and travelling companions to create an aura of a lone adventurer in a strange land.
  
  
• The Lowell Institute where Dr. Morse gave his lecture on Japan is still active.
  
  
• While Dr. Morse may have encountered our three Nantucket Captain’s during his travels in Japan, he certainly would have met Capt. Peter Hussey when the latter returned to America in 1888 and settled in Salem Mass. 
  
  
• Besides traveling with Capt. Richard Swain on their voyage from Japan to China, Isabella Stewart and Jack Gardner then stayed with two grown daughters of Warren F. Delano Jr., one in Shanghai and the other in Hong Kong. Both had married partners in Delano’s old firm, Russell & Co. As he resided part of the year in Shanghai, it’s likely Capt. Swain knew them as well. 
  
  
• Woman were also swept into the “Muscular Christianity” movement. Seven years after Sutematsu Yamakawa graduated, Vassar College opened a new Gymnasium Building, which included a swimming pool. While its students were always required to take some form of daily exercise, the College gradually implemented programs that examined the health and physical abilities of incoming Freshwomen, created a personalized regimen and tracked their progress. It also expanded its sports and recreation offerings, and later added a “swimming requirement” to graduate. (Miss Yamakawa would have aced it). · Here is the link to the MFA BOSTON Japanese Collection. · James Grieder also wrote this article about William Sturgis Bigelow on Tuckernuck. 
  
  
• William Sturgis Bigelow also actively promoted Japanese scholars to positions in American institutions (particularly the MFA) and was a tireless advocate for the nation through his political connections. Christopher Benfey covers his efforts in detail. 

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

In this final episode of season 6, Jim and I invite our colleague James Grieder to join us to discuss The Great Wave by Christopher Banfey. James has personal connection to one of the characters featured in Banfey's book.

This is the last episode in this season, but be sure to click that subscribe button, os you don't miss any bonus episodes and future seasons!

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Thank you to Reference Library Associate James Grieder for joining us for this discussion. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES: If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• Google Books has online versions of Edward Morse’s Japan Diaries: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
  
  
• The Lowell Institute where Dr. Morse gave his lecture on Japan is still active.
  
  
• While Dr. Morse may have encountered our three Nantucket Captain’s during his travels in Japan, he certainly would have met Capt. Peter Hussey when the latter returned to America in 1888 and settled in Salem Mass.
  
  
• Besides travelling with Capt. Richard Swain on their voyage from Japan to China, Isabella Stewart and Jack Gardner then stayed with two grown daughters of Warren F. Delano Jr., one in Shanghai and the other in Hong Kong. Both had married partners in Delano’s old firm, Russell & Co. As he resided part of the year in Shanghai, it’s likely Capt. Swain knew them as well.
  
  
• Here is the link to the MFA BOSTON Japanese Collection.
  
  
• James Grieder also wrote this article about William Sturgis Bigelow on Tuckernuck.
  
  
• William Sturgis Bigelow also actively promoted Japanese scholars to positions in American institutions (particularly the MFA) and was a tireless advocate for the nation through his political connections. Christopher Benfey covers his efforts in detail.

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

This week we discuss another book that added context and a new perspective to our story of Nantucket expats in Japan was Daughter's of the Samurai by Janice Nimura.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES:
 If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• Janica Nimura is also author of The Doctors Blackwell about Elizabeth Blackwell the first woman to received a M.D., and her sister Emily, who was even more skilled. Together they founded the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City.
  
  
• While Sutematsu Yamakawa was the youngest of her siblings to travel to the West, at least two of her brothers and two of her sisters also made the journey.
  
  
• In the early 1860’s Kiyotaka Kuroda was a skilled swordsman of the Satsuma domain, deeply resentful of the Western “invaders”. After witnessing the British shelling of Kagoshima in 1863, he realized that only military parity would ensure Japan’s independence and immediately began to study western gunnery. This existential need for parity, as well as the recognition they embodied the samurai spirit, led Kuroda to consider the defeated Aizu and others a valuable asset to Japan’s future. After a turbulent career, he became Prime Minister of Japan in 1888.
  
  
• Though he went on to have a distinguished career in military service and education in the Satsuma-dominated Meiji Era, Hiroshi Yamakawa continued to support the exiled Aizu community for the rest of his life, at great personal and financial cost. 
  
  
• Soon after arriving in New Haven, it was clear that Sutematsu and Shige would assimilate faster in separate households, and Shigei was sent to live with the family of Rev. J. S. C. Abbott. Rev. Abbott had previously led the Nantucket Congregational Church, and Shige later recalled visiting the island with one of Rev. Abbotts’ daughters during a summer break. 
  
  
• Shige was not the first  citizen of Meijii Japan to visit Nantucket. Three students from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute stayed several weeks in 1872 and gave several newspaper interviews.
  
  
• While they were undoubtedly acquainted, neither Shige nor Sutematsu took a class with Maria Mitchell. However, Sutematsu’s classmate, Florence Easton, (later Conable) not only studied with Prof. Mitchell, but later supported the Maria Mitchell Association. In 1913 she hosted Capt. Richard and Caroline Swain at her home in Monrovia California. As Caroline also likely knew Sutematsu she was probably a point of conversation. Florence Easton Conable donated the scrapbook she kept at Vassar to the Maria Mitchell Association. Tucked into it is a “carte de visite” photo of Sutematsu taken at the Borgardus studio in New York City. A diary kept by another classmate, Anne Wyman Southworth, now in the Vassar collection, puts both Flora and Sutematsu at that studio on Jan 22nd, 1882.

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

Jim spent more than a year researching the Nantucket diaspora in Japan, so a lot was left on the cutting room floor. There were a few books that we couldn’t quite fit into the main story line that we’re going the discuss in a bit more detail.

First up, Hen Frigates by Joan Druett.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.
 
 SHOW NOTES:
 If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• In addition to Hen frigates: wives of merchant captains under sail, Joan Druett has four other books in the Nantucket Atheneum collection. We highly recommend Petticoat whalers: whaling wives at sea, 1820-1920.  She has almost thirty books in the CLAMS and online collections, including several works of historical and crime fiction. 
  
  
• A thousand leagues of blue : the Pacific whaling voyages of Charles and Susan Veeder of Nantucket by Betsy Tyler is based on the remarkable illustrated journals Susan Veeder kept during a four-year whaling voyage with her husband, Capt. Charles Veeder. It also illustrates the preciousness of a mariner’s life as Charles apparently descended into madness on a later trip. 
  • (Betsy also joined us in 2022 for a podcast discussion about the creation of the Atheneum’s 1900 catalogue.)
• Eleanor Creasy and her navigation career is discussed in Steven Ujifusa’s Barons of the Sea, and in Flying Cloud: the true story of America's most famous clipper ship and the woman who guided her by David W. Shaw.
  
  
• Recognition of Emma Armstrong’s actions on the clipper Templar was grounded in acclaim for her father’s overall command.  The citation from the Board of Marine Underwriters of San Francisco is representative.
  
  
• Mary Ann Brown Patten replaced her incapacitated husband as commander and navigator of the clipper ship Neptune’s Car for 56 days. While she was slightly older than Ellen Armstrong, (nineteen vs fifteen), the First Mate had already been put in irons, the Second Mate had no navigational experience, she faced a mutiny, and was seven months pregnant. More details in the Feb 18, 1857, New York Tribune article is quoted here.
  
  
• As Joan Druett notes in her blog post, medical treatment on a 19th Century whale ship relied on the skills (and tools) used to kill and dismember whales.

© The Nantucket Atheneum

In this episode, Jim introduces you to our final sea captains that was born in Nantucket, but became part of the Japanese expat community: Captain Richard Swain.
 
This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.
 
 
 SHOW NOTES:
 If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• Like many members of the Nantucket diaspora, Capt. Swain subscribed to the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror. In 1911, in response to an article mentioning Abram Quarry, Swain wrote a letter of his memories of the man, whom he knew as a youngster. He also noted that Abram Quarry’s house in Shimmo was on land belonging to Capt. Swain’s grandfather, Hezekiah Swain. (I&M, Sept 16, 1911,Pg 2)
• Several former-Nantucket residents resided in Meiji Japan. One, the dentist Dr. George D. Richmond was good friends with Captains Fisher and Swain and sent several letters to the I&M detailing their gatherings.
  • An article in the I&M, likely based on one of Dr, Richmond’s letters, described how the trio, nostalgic for a traditional New England boiled dinner, arranged the shipment of a salt cod to Japan.
• Caroline Furber Swain seems to have held some views independent of her husband. 
  • During their 1912 visit to Nantucket, Capt. Swain gave an interview that generally praised the Japanese maritime industry and its military. However, he disparaged a certain naval officer he had met who while “educated, cultured and in every respect the equal of an unsuperstitious, clear-headed American,” also held the “…common superstition that the Emperor [of Japan] was something more than human and could command the forces of nature…” (Boston Sunday Post, July 14, 1912)
  • A month later Caroline Swain gave an informal talk at the Nantucket Quaker Meeting House about Japan, and as reported in the I&M, “…At the close she paid a truly eloquent tribute to the underlying spirit of religion of Japan, making a plea for those of Christian education and faith, to judge it kindly and leniently…”. (I&M Aug 8, 1912, Pg 2).

© The Nantucket Atheneum 

In this episode, Jim introduces you to another sea captains that was born in Nantucket, but became part of the Japanese expat community: Captain Arthur Fisher.
 
This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for use of their space and Shire Video for production support.
 
 
 SHOW NOTES:
 If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email [email protected]. and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• By the 1860’s American merchant ships and whales increasingly utilized Pacific ports for support. The services at these ports were frequently run by merchants from Nantucket and other sea-trading communities as extensions of their existing businesses along the eastern Atlantic.
  • The whaling voyage of the  Clara Bell under Capt. Timothy Fisher seems to have been based out of Paita, Peru, which had grown to include a hospital and resident American Counsel. (In 1862, Dr. C. F. Winslow of Nantucket was appointed to that post).
  • It’s possible that Arthur Fisher periodically resided at Paita with his mother and sister as part of the American expat community while the Clara Bell followed the pattern of Nantucket whaling from the pre-Pacific era – voyages of week or perhaps months, broken by extended periods at “home”.
  • The extreme duration of the Clara Bell’s voyage may have been driven by the American Civil War. Confederate Raiders targeted the American whalers, which were slow moving and poorly defended while carrying a highly desirable cargo. Relatively short trips and the safety of a foreign port, while far from safe, was less risky than long voyages far from shore.
• United today by a network of bridges of tunnels, the islands of Japan and the Seto Inland Sea of Japan was previously dependent on ships traveling between coastal ports. After Japan was forced to open its borders, steamships extended routine travel to Korea, China, and other parts of Asia.

© The Nantucket Atheneum