Mitchell corpus inventory
Working ingest map for season one. Page numbers are Kendall 1896 (Lee & Shepard; vi + 293; HathiTrust section starts). Chapter titles follow Gutenberg #10202. Albers 2001 is the preferred text where it overlaps; Kendall is the free spine.
Status key: ready = PD text can be chunked now; license = need MMA/Vassar/Albers; place = bind to an island anchor.
1. Kendall 1896 — chapter / page / use
HathiTrust section starts (mdp.39015033356646): ch.1 p.1 · ch.2 p.19 · ch.3 p.39 · ch.4 p.56 · ch.5 p.85 · ch.6 p.112 · ch.7 p.137 · ch.8 p.172 · ch.9 p.197 · ch.10 p.220 · ch.11 p.255. Gutenberg splits some of that run into ch.11–13 + appendix; use titles below and reconcile on ingest.
| Ch | Kendall pages (approx.) | Dates in heading | Contents | RAG tags | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1–18 | 1818–1846; diary 1854, 1855 | Parents, Quaker house, 1831 eclipse (age 12½), teaching, Atheneum librarian, piano, housework | nantucket atheneum eclipse-1831 childhood | ready / place |
| II | 19–38 | 1847–55; diary 1853–55 | Sweeping / comet 1 Oct 1847, Danish medal, Bond & Everett letters, AAAS, Dix, 1854 comet math, Cape Cod | comet-1847 medal computation | ready / place (Vestal roof) |
| III | 39–55 | mid-1850s | Transit wires, Deacon Greele, Smithsonian, Emerson, hard winter | instruments winter | ready |
| IV | 56–84 | mid-1850s | Southern tour: St. Louis academy, Mississippi, slave market / “peculiar institution”, Charleston, Mrs. Polk, Mammoth Cave | travel-south slavery-observed | ready — do not drop this chapter |
| V | 85–111 | 1857 | First Europe: Liverpool, Taylor, Martineau, Lassell, Hawthorne (5-minute call), Greenwich, Airy, Smyth, Hartwell | europe-1857 observatories | ready |
| VI | 112–136 | 1857 | Cambridge (Whewell, Adams, Challis, Sedgwick), lakes, Herschels, Edinburgh & Glasgow observatories | europe-1857 cambridge | ready |
| VII | 137–171 | 1857–58 | Neptune / Adams vs Leverrier, Bond at Cambridge Mass., Paris observatory, Rome, Hosmer, Secchi, Antonelli | neptune rome leverrier | ready |
| VIII | 172–196 | 1858–65 | Somerville, Humboldt, mother’s death, move to Lynn, Peabody gift telescope, star colors | lynn grief gift-telescope | ready |
| IX | 197–219 | 1865–85 | Vassar: faculty, students, “imagination in science,” “I am but a woman,” dome parties, 1881 comet, honor girls, Matthew Arnold | vassar teaching quote-authority | ready |
| X | 220–238 | 1873 | Russia / Pulkovo, Struve, London Cobbe, Glasgow College for Girls | europe-1873 russia | ready |
| XI | (Gutenberg; science papers) | 1874–78 | Science papers, Denver eclipse 1878, star colors | eclipse-1878 papers | ready |
| XII | Religion, sermons, Concord School, Emerson, Peabody, Whittier, cooking-school anecdotes | religion unitarian concord | ready | ||
| XIII | –293 | 1880s | Letters, suffrage, Women’s Congress Syracuse, degrees, health, resigns Vassar, death 28 Jun 1889 Lynn; buried Prospect Hill | suffrage death prospect-hill | ready / place (grave AR only with label) |
| App. | end matter | 1847–48 | Everett note + Danish medal correspondence | medal primary-letters | ready |
Ingest rule: chunk by dated diary block, not by Kendall’s narrative glue. Tag Kendall’s connective tissue as editor-kendall so the model does not speak Phebe’s sentences as Maria.
2. Albers 2001 — chapter list (preferred text)
xiii + 370 pp. College Avenue Press. License.
- Early years on Nantucket
- Maria’s comet
- Nantucket diaries
- Travels in America
- England and Scotland
- France and Italy
- From Nantucket to Vassar
- Vassar College, 1865–1873
- European travels, 1873
- Vassar College, 1873–1880
- Vassar College, 1880–1888
- The final years
Bib. pp. 357–361. Use Albers to fill Kendall’s ellipses and to date diary lines Kendall floated without year.
3. Unpublished / institutional (license)
| Collection | Shelf | What to pull first | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMA Archives, 2 Vestal | Series I boxes 1–14 (corr., notes, lectures, scrapbooks); Series II published works | Nantucket years, comet night working notes, family letters, lectures she actually gave | license — Finger appointment ≥1 month |
| Vassar Mitchell Papers | 31 notebooks; Nautical Almanac 1853; dept. reports 1871–86; letters to Lossing, Morse, Raymond, Swan, Taylor | Teaching voice; pay fight; observation method she can explain without dumping raw columns into RAG | license |
| NHA MS5 | 12 digitized social letters, 1859–83 + William Mitchell journal extract | Island return, “Welcome Home” poem, local singularity | ready (NHA digital) + reproduction for images |
| NHA MS120 / 259 / 296 | MMA institutional; Henry Mitchell; notes on Maria | Context, not her mouth | B only |
Do not embed glass-plate reductions or Nautical Almanac tables as prose. Point the object lesson at the physical Clark and a single sample sheet.
4. Place-binding (Corpus A → island anchor)
| Anchor | Lat/long to confirm on site | Kendall / Albers hook | AR/VR mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitchell House, 1 Vestal | Vestal at Milk | Ch. I home life | Billboard + house tour kiosk |
| Roof / yard walk | Same parcel | Ch. II comet; Albers “ladder leading to rooftop walk” | Hero monologue / Quest |
| Vestal Street Observatory / Astronomical Study | 3 Vestal | Successor space — she did not work in the 1908 dome. Label it. Clark on display (2025). | Object lesson |
| Loines Observatory | 59 Milk St Ext | Living MMA night program — not her building | Optional “look up” AR, modern clerk |
| Atheneum, 1 India | Downtown | Ch. I librarian appointment | Dated day-job scene |
| Pacific National Bank roof (father’s observing) | Main St | Instruments in ch. I–II | Thin AR |
| Prospect Hill Cemetery | Off Milk / Vestal axis | Ch. XIII burial | Quiet plaque, no talking grave |
| Atheneum Great Hall | India St | Adjacent 1841 Douglass night — not her monologue | Scene credit only |
5. Quote pack to lock early (verify page on ingest)
Pull and cite, do not paraphrase into the system prompt as if they were slogans:
- “Until women throw off reverence for authority they will not develop…” (published advocacy; confirm edition page).
- “We especially need imagination in science.” (diary 1878 / Vassar exhibit).
- “I am but a woman.” (Kendall ch. IX).
- 1831 eclipse: “I counted seconds for father… I was twelve and a half years old.” (later echo 1885).
- Southern-tour pages on the slave market (ch. IV) — required, not optional color.
6. Question-bank seeds (cite or refuse)
| Visitor ask | Hit | Refuse if |
|---|---|---|
| How did you find the comet? | Ch. II + medal appendix | — |
| Are there people on other worlds? | Period natural theology / her creed notes | Modern exoplanet catalog |
| What do you think of NASA / Hubble? | Cutoff 1889 | Always refuse as lived opinion |
| What did Nantucket Quaker meeting require of girls? | Ch. I + Friends discipline as C | Invented feminist anachronism |
| What did you see in the South? | Ch. IV | Softening |
| What should girls study? | Ch. IX address to students | Career-counseling 2026 |
| Did you know Frederick Douglass spoke here? | Beat 3 / clerk | First-person 1841 play-by-play she did not write |
Target: 400 rows before compile. Each row: question · corpus ID · Kendall/Albers page · refuse Y/N.
7. Ingest order (two weeks)
- Gutenberg Kendall → clean text, strip Phebe glue, chunk by date.
- Appendix medal letters as standalone A.
- NHA MS5 letters.
- Albers overlap pass under license.
- MMA appointment for anything still thin on 1847 night and Atheneum years.
- Vassar notebooks as method cards, not raw RAG.
- Historian red-line of the 400 questions.
Done when every public sentence can point at a row in this inventory.