There Was Once a Basket from Nantucket: A Modern Global Commodity

Laini Farrare, WPAMC ’24

It was a sunny crisp day to visit the island of Nantucket, when the WPAMC Class of 2024 and our leaders boarded the fast ferry from New Bedford, Massachusetts to the “The Little Grey Lady of the Sea.” Visiting the island felt like going back in time, as it was the whaling capital of the world before New Bedford took the title in the nineteenth century. Nantucket and whaling are often synonymous with each other, made famous by Moby Dick of course, but also due to the striking basketry originally associated with the nineteenth-century Lightships. Nantucket Baskets have been a strong tradition for islanders but have also grown into an international community of makers and admirers in Japan, making these baskets a commodity that engages vast groups of people.

The Nantucket Whaling Museum has impressive displays and an engaging collection. The museum does not focus on the physical aspects of whaling, but mainly on the material cultural heritage of Nantucket and its significance as a whaling port. Material culture items on display include numerous intricate examples of scrimshaw, Nantucket furniture (Fig. 1), whale skeletons, and the Nantucket Lightship Baskets. There were numerous baskets on display along with interpretation about their history and cultural legacy to islanders. The baskets are constructed with a wooden base of rattan and cane and are woven on molds. Originally, they were used for shopping and storage but have now become a symbol for the island and the exceptional craftsmanship used to construct them. Many people now carry them as purses, and the top is usually customized with an animal of the consumer’s choice (Figs. 2 and 3).

One label that struck me (Fig. 4) was about Etsuko Yashiro, a Japanese born Nantucket basket weaver. She began making the baskets in the 1990s and now teaches the craft in Japan. The international adoption of the basket weaving tradition has helped transform the craft tradition on Nantucket into a cultural legacy. How can objects become representative of a place? Nantucket baskets represent a cultural diffusion. In Japan, where most of the Nantucket basket weaving now takes place, the objects are still called “Nantucket Baskets”, even though they are made elsewhere. Why are they not called “Nantucket Styled Baskets”? The cultural heritage and importance of the basket cannot be shifted away from Nantucket overnight. The Industrial Revolution roots of these baskets made way for their new cultural and aesthetic material life when the island embraced tourism as its main industry after whaling declined. The object’s identity changed but not its representation and connotation. Japanese weavers like Yashiro contribute to this shifting identity yet again, but now the basket’s identity is one of appreciation for the craftsmanship and cross-cultural exchange. The Nantucket Basket is an object that unites Nantucket and Japan in a material marriage of culture, representation, and identity.