Japan-Nantucket (Rashomon): Episode 1 - What Happened After Nantucket?

In Season Six of the Nantucket Atheneum Podcast, Janet and Jim are back to trace the travels of islanders that made their way around the world to Japan in the 19th century. In this first episode, we try to answer the question "What happened after Nantucket?"

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 the use of their whisper booth 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. 

Nantucket’s connection to Japan pre-dates Commodore Perry’s arrival and extends to the present day. Our podcast series focuses on a handful of individuals, active in the Meiji era of Japan (1868-1912), as they illuminate the rich complexity of that connection. We hope that others will be inspired by to bring additional lives and eras to light…  

For those new to Nantucket and its history, our “go-to” introduction is Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Away Off Shore”. 

The Summer 1999 Issue of the NHA’s Historic Nantucket Magazine was devoted to the islanders’ experience in Gold Rush California. 

The post-whaling emigration from Nantucket’s was common knowledge at the time. A “Letter From Nantucket” originally published in the Fall River News on Aug 3, 1877, and reprinted in the I&M on Aug 18th (page 4), describes:
“….its sons bearing the honored names of Coffin, Hussey, Barker, Rotch, Joy, Macy, Starbuck, Mitchell, or others equally familiar, leaving the paternal roofs, and applying their native shrewdness and their academic and collegiate education in honorable avocations in distant marts; with its daughters famed for their beauty, tidiness and culture, presiding over houses in all the Northern States.….For one hundred years Nantucket prospered; now she sits in widow’s weeds.” 

“Barons of the Sea and Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper Ship” by Steven Ujifusa is available at the Nantucket Atheneum and Island bookstores. 

Additional information about Frederick Sanford is  available at the Nantucket Atheneum Reference Dept, including background information on the five Delano and Low ships whose portraits hang in the Atheneum Great Hall. 

The Nantucket Atheneum also has copies of Mr. Ujifusa’s recent works:A man and his ship: America's greatest naval architect and his quest to build the S.S. United States “ The last ships from Hamburg : business, rivalry, and the race to save Russia's Jews on the eve of World War I 

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