One-page ask — Maria Mitchell Association and Nantucket Historical Association

Re: a sourced, labeled, full-body interpretation of Maria Mitchell for Vestal Street, the Atheneum, and a thin island AR layer.

What we want to build

A single identity package (body, wardrobe, voice, closed corpus, cutoff 28 June 1889) compiled three ways:

Kiosk in the Astronomical Study or Mitchell House / Atheneum — rest pose plus a 10-minute comet-night monologue and sourced Q&A.
Quest / seated VR of the Vestal roof walk the night of 1 October 1847.
Phone AR postcards at a short list of anchors (Vestal yard, Atheneum steps, Pacific Bank roof as father’s station). Not a second mind. Not a talking grave.

Every surface says: An interpretation from dated sources. It can be wrong. It cannot know what happened after 1889. Credits name MMA, the historian of record, the actor, and the edition.

This is not a chatbot in a costume and not a resurrection.

What we are asking of you

MMA (lead). Collections access to Series I papers and the Clark / study objects; Jascin Leonardo Finger (or designate) as historian of record with veto; after-hours or shoulder-season slot at Vestal; co-ownership of the methodology page; first look at logs.

NHA (partner). MS5 letters and reproduction rights; Whaling Museum / Fair Street adjacency for later figures; no requirement to host Mitchell if MMA does.

Both. A collections agreement that covers stills of manuscripts and approved portraits for the mesh; a sentence on who may retrain or advertise the face in year five (default: you).

We are not asking to scrape digital exhibits, film visitors, or put Mitchell in the gift shop.

What you get

A night program that sits next to Loines Open Nights instead of competing with research time in the dome.
Classroom lock-topic mode for Nantucket Public Schools / MMA Discovery.
Public methodology (sources, cutoff, actor) that takes the deepfake question off your staff.
Engine reuse later for Gardner, voyage-journal cabins, or a Meeting House retrieval piece — only if those institutions want them.

What we will not do

Speak after 1889 in her voice. Invent a childhood portrait. Put her body in the 1908 observatory as if she worked there. Soft-pedal the Southern-tour diary. Build a companionship mode. Premiere on Straight Wharf in July.

Process and money

Nine months after MOU: rights map → corpus (Kendall PD now; Albers + MMA/Vassar under license) → likeness → capture week → eval (blind historian + a class + access review) → soft open at comet anniversary or a shoulder-season evening.

Ballpark for Mitchell + kiosk + Quest + three AR anchors, assuming partnership licenses: $150,000–$250,000 plus year-one maintenance $25,000–$40,000. Shared engine cost does not recur at that scale for figure two.

First meeting (45 minutes)

Confirm lead venue.
Name the historian of record.
List the ten objects and ten photographs we may study.
Agree the label copy.
Set the appointment window for Archives (≥ one month’s notice).

Contacts already on the public record: MMA info@mariamitchell.org / jfinger@mariamitchell.org / 4 Vestal Street; NHA Research Library, 7 Fair Street.

A longer production brief and corpus inventory sit behind this page. We will not start a mesh until the MOU exists.