Nantucket - Maria Mitchell Birthplace House

Maria Mitchell Birthplace House is the Quaker-style house built in 1818. Maria Mitchell was America's first woman professional astronomer, the first woman to be elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the first woman professor of Astronomy at Vassar College. The Maria Mitchell Birthplace House contains exhibits that detail her life as a scientist, educator and social reformer such as family furnishings and heirlooms along with the brass telescope Mitchell used to discover the comet that made her internationally famous.