Nantucket Basket, Lightship Basket, or Friendship Basket? What’s the Difference?

Nantucket basket. Lightship basket. Friendship basket. Three names that are often used as if they mean the same thing. They’re certainly related, but each tells a slightly different part of the story.

First, the Short Answer

A Lightship basket is the traditional molded basket form associated with Nantucket’s 19th-century lightship crews. Nantucket basket has become the broader, more familiar name for baskets made in this tradition. A Friendship basket generally refers to the later lidded purse style developed by José Formoso Reyes after World War II.

The Lightship Basket: Where the Name Began

Picture a working basket: open at the top, sturdy enough to be useful, and carefully woven around a wooden mold. That is the foundation of the Nantucket Lightship basket. 

In the latter half of the 19th century, basket weaving became closely associated with crews aboard lightships stationed near Nantucket’s dangerous shoals. Sailors aboard the South Shoal Lightship became accomplished basketmakers, and the baskets they made became known as Lightship baskets.

Traditionally, the form is defined by a solid wooden base, rattan staves, cane weavers, and construction around a mold. Historically, the Lightship basket is the most specific name for the original form and tradition.

The Nantucket Basket: The Name Gets Bigger

Over time, Nantucket basket became a broader term for baskets made in the Lightship tradition—whether woven aboard a lightship (as the early ones were), made ashore by later generations of basketmakers, or created by contemporary craftspeople carrying the tradition forward.

Today, if someone says “Nantucket basket,” they may be talking about an open Lightship-style basket, a lidded purse, or even the broader style of basketry associated with the island.

Language evolves and so do baskets. That’s why Nantucket basket and Lightship basket can often refer to the same object today, even though Lightship basket carries the more specific historical meaning.

The Friendship Basket: And Then Came the Purse

Here’s where things get especially interesting. After World War II, José Formoso Reyes came to Nantucket and learned basketmaking from established island maker Mitchell “Mitchy” Ray. Reyes began experimenting with the traditional form, adding a lid and decorative elements and creating what became known as the Friendship basket purse.

Suddenly, the basket wasn’t simply something to carry things in. It was something to carry. The familiar Nantucket basket purse–with its hinged lid, handle, and often a carved decoration on top–grew from this later chapter of the Lightship basket tradition.

So while a Friendship basket belongs to the Nantucket basket family, not every Nantucket basket is a Friendship basket.

Why the Names Get Confused

Part of the confusion is simply the success of the design. The lidded purse became such a recognizable symbol of Nantucket that, for many people, it is the image that comes to mind when they hear “Nantucket basket.”

Meanwhile, generations of makers have continued to reinterpret the tradition in different sizes, shapes, materials, and forms. The vocabulary naturally became less precise along the way. There’s no need to police every casual use of the words. But understanding the distinctions gives you a better appreciation for how the craft evolved. It went from practical basket, to island keepsake, to fashion, and beyond.

A Tradition That Keeps Moving

That evolution is part of what interests us most at Whale Tail Weaving.

We grew out of the Nantucket basket-weaving tradition, but we’ve never believed that honoring a craft means keeping it frozen in one moment in time. We look at the materials, techniques, textures, and stories behind the baskets and ask a different question:

Where can weaving go next?

Sometimes the answer is a bracelet. Sometimes jewelry, leather, or an entirely different form. The thread connecting them isn't that they all look like baskets. It’s that they begin with an appreciation for the craft behind them. The names may have changed along the way, but the weave connects them all.

In a Nutshell

• Lightship basket: The historic molded basket form associated with Nantucket’s lightship crews.
• Nantucket basket: The broader term now commonly used for baskets made in the Nantucket Lightship tradition.
• Friendship basket: The later lidded purse form associated with José Formoso Reyes and the evolution of the Nantucket basket into fashion.

Different names. Different moments. One remarkable weaving tradition.