Japan-Nantucket (Rashomon): BONUS - Florence Easton Conable: Everywhere we went, there she was.

Jim and Janet are back with three bonus episodes about Florence Easton Conable, who gets just a small mention on one episode, but who helps tie the whole series together. She has personal connections to our three Nantucket Sea Captains, was a classmate of the Samurai Daughters and friends with Maria Mitchell. In this first episode we give an overview of her life. 

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 Shire Video for production support.

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

• Other prominent Nantucketer’s holding positions at the Michigan Central Railroad in the mid-1850’s included Charles B. Swain Esq., Agent of the Company’s Great Lakes steamers, and Frederick Hussey, (uncle of Capt. Peter Hussey), who was an accountant.

• The quoted letters written by Florence Easton Conable are part of the Archives and Special Collections Library at Vassar College. We will be discussing its other relevant holdings with Ronald Patkus, head of Special Collections at Vassar College, in our next episode.

• Edward Bellemy’s “Six to One” may be the first “rom com” set on Nantucket. We discussed it in our podcast from Season 2, The Shelves of Yore: Annals and Idyls from the 1900s, starting around 09:50 (but the prior discussions are also pretty interesting).

• The jaw-dropping scope of the development planned for Surfside is detailed in the “Plan of the Lands of the Nantucket Surfside Land co…. [1881]” (Courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association).

• For a general history of the Progressive Movement, see Michael McGerr’s, “A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920”. (2005) [available via CLAMS]. For a more detailed discussion of its impact on Southern California, see Kevin Starr’s “Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era” (2014). [Available via ComCat]

• Florence Easton Conable remained politically and socially active. (At age 82, she was reappointed to the Board of the Monrovia Public Library.) She died in California in her 90th year and was buried next to her late husband in Cortland, N.Y.

• “Inn and Out”, the cottage inherited by Florence Easton Conable was documented in “Architectural & Historical Report for 6 Center Street Siasconset…”. It was prepared by Marsha L. Fader, AIA Architect and Betsy Tyler, Historian for The ‘Sconset Trust, Inc.