# Tier 1 — Susan Veeder (1816–1897) and Eliza Brock (1810–1899) Two complete, illustrated, day-by-day voyage journals already digitized by the NHA. This is the rare local case where Corpus A is a cabin, a calendar, and sixteen watercolors. They are quieter than Mitchell or Essex. That is why they work as VR/AR extras and as second chairs, or as a season-two hero pair. ## Why Tier 1 - Full scans + (for Veeder) an NHA-held transcript used by a WPI team to map the *Nauticon*. - Visual corpus: Veeder’s island watercolors; Brock’s whale stamps, poems, letters copied into the back of the book. - Shipboard place is buildable in VR in a way Fair Street childhood is not. - Trauma is real but specific: Veeder gave birth at Talcahuano; the child Mary Frances died at 14 months in Tahiti. Protocol required; not Essex-scale. ## Primary material ### Susan C. Austin Veeder — ship *Nauticon*, Sep 1848–Mar 1853 | Source | Where | |---|---| | Journal, complete scan | https://nha.org/digitalexhibits/nauticon/index.html and NHA exhibit page with paged PDFs | | Published as *Islands Seen by Ship Nauticon 1848–53* | Cite the edition NHA used | | Additional Nantucket journals | NHA collection (WikiTree notes onshore journals exist) | | WPI 2020 interactive map | Transcript + lat/long spreadsheet of entries — ask NHA for that research file rather than re-keying | | Voyage facts | Ship built 1848 Mattapoisett; owners G & M Starbuck; 1445 bbl / 4600 lb baleen; sons Charles Jr. (12) and David (6) aboard | | Likeness | NHA photo GPN768 (used in island women’s exhibits) | Contents the model must be able to stand in: Talcahuano; Pitcairn and Fletcher Christian’s house; Sandwich Islands; Arctic ice 13 days; polar bear; sixteen island watercolors. Cutoff for the voyage-self: March 1853 landfall. An old woman in New Bedford (d. 1897) is a different file. ### Eliza Spencer Brock — ship *Lexington*, 21 May 1853–25 June 1856 | Source | Where | |---|---| | Complete scan | https://www.nha.org/digitalexhibits/brocklog/ | | Exhibit index | Azores, Cape Verde, New Zealand, Hawaii, South Pacific, Okhotsk; isolation line: “if it was not for hope the heart would break.” | | Gift note 31 July 1922 | Son Joseph C. Brock to NHA; he had been aboard at age 6 | | Extra matter in the MS | Poems, letters, “Nantucket Girls Song,” account of *Citizen* wreck (Capt. Thomas H. Norton), whale-taken stamps | Captain Peter C. Brock (1805–78). Isolation and weather are the voice, not oratory. ### B / C - Other wives’ logs in the same NHA digital set (Azubah Cash on *Columbia*) as comparison, not merge. - Period shipboard medicine, childbirth at a Chilean port, what “spoken a ship” means. - Neither woman should lecture 21st-c. marine conservation in-character. ## Partners | Org | Role | |---|---| | **NHA** | Lead. Journals, photos, Boardman embroidered tribute to Veeder, Whaling Museum. | | **New Bedford Whaling Museum** | *Nauticon* later New Bedford voyages; Veeder died there. | | **WPI Nantucket project alumni / NHA digital** | Existing map + transcript. | | Theater Workshop of Nantucket | *Spirits Within Us* already scripted Veeder. Collaborate; don’t compete. | ## Programs 1. **Cabin VR / kiosk.** One watch, one watercolor, one Q&A bounded by that week’s pages. 2. **AR watercolor overlay.** Point the phone at a map; Veeder’s island painting sits on the water. 3. **Dual Veeder × Brock.** Two wives, overlapping Pacific years, different tones (illustrated wonder vs. hope-against-break). 4. **Object lesson.** Journal as object; whale stamp; a child’s presence on the ship. 5. **Grief protocol** for Mary Frances. Do not make the dead child a surprise mechanic. ## Production steps 1. NHA reproduction license for scans + transcript. Budget conservation-quality images of the 16 watercolors for textures. 2. Date-index every page into the RAG store (WPI spreadsheet as scaffold). 3. Two dated selves (1848–53 and 1853–56). No blended “whaling wife.” 4. Cabin set: bunk, desk, small pane, rolling idle. Optimized MetaHuman for Quest. 5. Voice: two actors; Veeder slightly more descriptive, Brock more spare. Captions — handscript is hard. 6. Eval with maritime historians of women at sea and with MMA/NHA education (child visitors will ask about the baby). ## Budget band $100k–$200k for one cabin + one woman + AR paintings. Dual cabin ~1.5×, not 2× (shared ship art). Cheaper than Essex because the moral design is narrower and the text is already scanned.