How did you used to make money off your barn or shed? Allow a hand painted sign to advertise on the side. Here are a few from the...

Work took me to Germany in late 2012. I’ve already written about the food I ate, Christmas Markets, and train travel from Munich to Bonn...

I roll over this analogy in my mind as I work with my study of 1,000 runaway indentured and enslaved women and their 6,000 garments,...

James E. Taylor. Photo: National Anthropological Archives, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Using...

RL Fifield performing Botan with Ichifujikai in 2006. My height earned me male roles, along with accompanying tummy padding under my...

Online databases are incredible tools. While my museum career has mostly focused on textiles, dress, and ethnographic materials, I never...

Lewis Hine’s photographs will always remind us of the successes of the Labor Movement. The title of this image is Addie Card, 12 years....

The garments draped over the racks in the golden scene depicted on this screen raise questions about the woman who left them there. The...

I’ll have the Scollop of Oysters, hartychokes, cold lobster, and olive pudding! Winterthur has in their collections the Dinner Book of...

This woodblock print in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts The Geisha Toye as a Vendor of Poems, and dates to c. 1795. Geisha were...

I wrote those words “gridded on my mind” years ago in a short story, the protagonist describing herself as the antagonist’s Eadweard...

In 2002, the MFA Boston acquired the Leonard Lauder large collection of Japanese postcards. The most thrilling images are Taisho...

Nothing underlines the fact that Sesame Street is a New York product like this 1974 clip “Subway.” It’s a bit discordant and urban,...

Yes, I’m a museum professional, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use museum databases to see objects I enjoy when I get home. I’m...

I was compiling a list of objects with a Maryland theme from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection for the fun of it. My mother’s...

Siracusa. RL Fifield, 2007. I conjure Siracusa, and bite my lip. It’s wonderful. Layers of civilization created this hauntingly beautiful...

Kimono? White makeup? Shamisen music? In New York City? I spent a few years as part of a semi-professional kabuki dance troupe here, as a...

If there’s one thing I felt after reading the excellent New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg ( eds. Marshall Berman and Brian...

If there’s one thing I felt after reading the excellent New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg ( eds. Marshall Berman and Brian...

She passed away this year, and today they are holding a memorial concert in her honor in Williamsburg. Barbara lived there with her...