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New Museums for Nantucket

© Dina Ely

Nantucket Island's history is so rich that it's outgrown the current museum facilities--so much so that 95% of the Nantucket Historical Association's 30,000 artifacts are in storage!

The ever-vigilant NHA has finally arrived at a plan to expand Nantucket's museums and historical centers. They will restore the current Whaling Museum as a candle factory (the building's original purpose), renovate the Peter-Foulger Museum for new galleries, and construct an entirely new building connecting the other two. In many ways this is the biggest development 100 years, since the NHA built the Research Library for a similar purpose.

The new museums will boast many new exhibition areas that will be climate-controlled and handicap-accessible. The NHA is funding these endeavors from its latest fundraising campaign which has a goal of $21 million, and currently contains nearly $18 million. The new museums are being designed and constructed by several talented Boston firms. At the helm of construction is Boston's Shawmut Construction, whose former projects include the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

For those of us who love the Whaling Museum, we may be consoled in that the content isn't disappearing, simply relocating. Its whaling artifacts and a striking 47 foot sperm whale skeleton will become the centerpiece of the new museum's Gosnell Hall. According to the NHA's Winter 2003 Newsletter, we can expect lectures and audiovisual presentations in the new Whaling Museum, too.

Ground broke on the construction of the new museums on October 11, 2003. The facilities are expected to be opened in Spring of 2005. Because of the now-ongoing restoration, the current Whaling Museum closed to the public in late September, 2003, and will not re-open until Spring of 2005. If you are planning a trip to Nantucket before April 2004, you can still enjoy some of the Whaling Museum's public programs at the Quaker Meeting House. The programs will include small displays of some of the whaling artifacts and accompanying lectures.

You can view several different exhibits from around Nantucket Island on the NHA web site. One such exhibit is called "Scallop Season", which was on display at the Whitney Gallery until December 30th, 2003. "Scallop Season" is a photographic journal documenting the work of scallopers on the island in 1999-2000. The exhibit is based upon a book of the same name. To view the "Scallop Season" exhibit online, visit http://www.nha.org/digitalexhibits/scall... .

Another fascinating online exhibit is entitled "Embroidered Narratives" by Susan Boardman. The exhibit contains nine detailed embroideries that tell the stories of the lives of nine Nantucket women, including Mary Starbuck and Maria Mitchell. The embroideries are truly stunning and worth viewing. You can see them and read their respective texts at http://www.nha.org/library/whitneygaller... . If you fall in love with them you can purchase the embroideries on a set of 9 gift cards. See the exhibit site for more information.