# Tier 1 — Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) Best first full-body character on Nantucket. Thick Corpus A, surviving rooms, photographs, a living science institution on Vestal Street, and a voice that is already usable in print. Pronunciation in her circle: **Ma-RYE-ah**. ## Why she is Tier 1 - Own words in published journals and letters plus unpublished notebooks. - Likeness from photographs and the 1885 Vassar observatory class picture. - Place continuity: birthplace (1790 house), Atheneum (librarian 1836–56), comet night of 1 October 1847, burial on-island. She never stood in the later Vestal Street Observatory (1908), but her five-inch Alvan Clark and the Astronomical Study now sit there. - Demand: girls in science, night-sky tourism, Quaker-to-Unitarian arc, Nantucket Public Schools programs MMA already runs. ## Primary material (Corpus A / B / C) ### A — Own words | Source | Where | Use | |---|---|---| | *Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals*, ed. Phebe Mitchell Kendall (Lee & Shepard, 1896) | Internet Archive / PD in US | Core voice bible. Sister’s selection; note what she omitted. | | *Maria Mitchell, A Life in Journals and Letters*, ed. Henry Albers (2001) | Print; license if quoting beyond fair use | Fuller, better annotated than Kendall. | | Maria Mitchell Papers, Vassar College Archives | 12 cu. ft.; 31 observation notebooks; 1861–89 correspondence; glass plates | Professional mind: Nautical Almanac, salary fights, student work. Finding aid: digitallibrary.vassar.edu. | | Papers ca. 1825–1887, Maria Mitchell Association (microfilm at APS) | MMA Archives, 2 Vestal / Drake Cottage storage; curator **Jascin Leonardo Finger**, [email protected] | Childhood, family, travel diaries (South and West 1854–57; Europe 1857–58). Appointment ≥1 month. | | NHA MS5 Maria Mitchell Papers, 1859–1883 | **Digitized.** 12 social letters + extract of William Mitchell’s journal. Related: MS120 MMA papers, MS259 Henry Mitchell, MS296 notes. | Island gossip, “Welcome Home” poem, Nantucket singularity. | ### B — Contemporaries - William Mitchell autobiography and memoir of Judge Walter Folger (in the MMA/APS film). - Vassar trustee minutes and salary correspondence (copies in Vassar papers). - Atheneum librarian records; town newspapers on the 1847 comet and the King of Denmark medal (1848). - Students (Mary W. Whitney) and AAW colleagues. ### C — Period knowledge (cutoff 28 June 1889) - Nautical Almanac methods she used; 19th-c. comet discovery protocol; Quaker meeting discipline and her later Unitarian lean; women’s higher education as it existed at Vassar 1865–88. - She must not discuss Hubble, NASA, Pluto-as-planet, or 20th-c. feminism as if she had read it. ### Likeness and objects - Photographs at MMA, NHA, Vassar (1885 parlor/steps with six students). - Five-inch Alvan Clark she used; displayed in the renovated Astronomical Study (reopened 2025). - Personal library at MMA. - Clothing: Quaker plain dress evolving toward simpler professional dress at Vassar. Costume historian required. ## Partners | Org | Why | First ask | |---|---|---| | **Maria Mitchell Association** | House, instruments, archives, night programs, brand. ED Joanna Roche; deputy/curator Jascin Leonardo Finger. | Collections license + venue + historian seat. | | **Nantucket Atheneum** | Librarian years; 1841 adjacent history. | Dated “day job” scene. | | **Vassar Special Collections** | Professional papers and photos. | Reproduction + quote license. | | **NHA** | MS5 and island context. | Cross-promo, not lead client. | | **Nantucket Public Schools** | MMA already teaches here. | Classroom lock-topic mode. | Do not launch a Mitchell character without MMA. The house and the name are theirs. ## Programs 1. **Comet night (hero monologue).** 1 Oct 1847, roof / Vestal yard. 10–12 min. Then Q&A inside cutoff. 2. **Object lesson.** Dollond / Clark telescope, Nautical Almanac sheet, comet medal. 3. **Librarian day.** Atheneum stacks; J.Q. Adams autograph anecdote is in a surviving note. 4. **“Throw off reverence for authority.”** Classroom pack from her own sentence. 5. **Dual (season 1b).** Mitchell × Anna Gardner, 1876 Women’s Congress (Gardner spoke at Mitchell’s invitation). Chautauqua clock on every public slot. Out-of-character beat can be a living MMA astronomer. ## Production steps 1. **Rights memo** (2–4 weeks). MMA + Vassar + Kendall/Albers editions. Photographs are the sticky part, not 1896 text. 2. **Corpus build** (8–10 weeks). Transcribe/clean Kendall + Albers into a dated, citable store. Pull 31 notebook types as *topics she can explain*, not as raw numbers dumped into RAG. Historian: Finger or an MMA research fellow with veto. 3. **Question bank** (parallel). 400 anticipated visitor questions (comet, Quaker exit, Vassar pay, “are there people on other worlds,” suffrage, Nantucket men at sea). Cite or refuse. 4. **Likeness** (8 weeks, parallel). Mesh-to-MetaHuman from best photographs + body type from clothing and descriptions. Two LODs: kiosk hero, Quest/AR. 5. **Wardrobe.** 1847 Nantucket night vs. 1870s Vassar teaching dress. Do not freeze her at 29. 6. **Voice.** Directed actor + dialect (coastal Quaker New England, not stage Yankee). Record 45 min voice bible. Captions. 7. **Authored performance.** Mocap the comet monologue on a roof stand-in. Idle life for the kiosk (adjusting a tube, writing a log). 8. **Compile.** Kiosk in Astronomical Study or Atheneum; Quest scene = roof + study; billboard AR on Vestal Street for the comet night only. 9. **Eval.** Blind fact check by a historian who did not build the corpus; MMA education staff; a class; accessibility (night program contrast, seated viewers). 10. **Soft open** Oct (comet anniversary) or summer Open Night adjacency at Loines — not inside an active research dome. ## Risks - Turning her into a smiling STEM mascot. Her diaries are dry, exact, sometimes bleak about doctrine and money. - Putting her body in the 1908 observatory as if she worked there. Label the room as successor space. - Letting the model discuss modern astrophysics. ## Budget band (this figure only) $150k–$250k for kiosk + Quest + street AR postcard if MMA is client and licenses are partnership, not retail.