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BECKY FIFIELD
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Get Ready! Snow in the Mid-Atlantic
Stay safe, stay warm, and make sure you’ve updated your emergency plan, whether at home, at work, or protecting our cultural heritage....

Becky Fifield
Jan 21, 20161 min read
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“Omelettes – Plain or with Rum”
What? Where in culinary history did I miss the inclusion of rum in an omelet? New York Public Library announced recently the availability...

Becky Fifield
Jan 8, 20161 min read
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Apple of My Eye: Lead Pesticide Use in 1920s Orchards
Orchard workers at Mt. Pleasant Orchard, near Havre de Grace, Maryland, c. 1915. Over the Christmas holiday, I unearthed a small journal...

Becky Fifield
Jan 5, 20162 min read
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Snapshots from New Orleans
Aiji is a taxi driver. He is also the founder of the first burrito bar in Rwanda and a vegan chef. For right now, it’s the taxi while...

Becky Fifield
Jan 2, 20161 min read
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Samuel Adams’s Mother Was a Fifield
RL Fifield vacuuming samplers with a dental vacuum in the old Textile Conservation Lab, MFA Boston, 2001. Back in the early aughts, I was...

Becky Fifield
Dec 30, 20152 min read
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Wanderlust Fodder: Atlas Obscura’s Interactive Map of Roadtrips in American Literature
Mr. I sent me a link recently to Atlas Obscura’s “The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trips.” It is...

Becky Fifield
Dec 5, 20151 min read
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Thomas Bewick, Newcastle Wood Engraver (1753-1828)
Oil painting on canvas, Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Cherryburn, Northumberland, National Trust. NT 530359. In digging through the British...

Becky Fifield
Nov 5, 20152 min read
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The Pain of Mosul – A Preservation Professional’s Perspective
I have spent my life caring for cultural heritage. As a museum collection manager, my work aims to preserve the physical and intellectual...

Becky Fifield
Feb 27, 20152 min read
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Maryland Preparations for the Sick, 1881
‘Tis the season for illness. Cooking tomes of the past often included a chapter of recipes to be made for the ill and infirm. Certainly,...

Becky Fifield
Jan 6, 20151 min read
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New Year’s Day – A Great Day to Run Away
Der Wöchentliche Pennsylvanische Staatsbote 9/17/1773. RL Fifield Photo. Library of Congress. Many of us choose some aspect of life to...

Becky Fifield
Jan 1, 20152 min read
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The Zoo, the Park, and a Baltimore Befuddlement
I’m not an expert on Baltimore, by any means. I’ve never lived there. I was born in Towson and grew up in Carroll County. But Baltimore...

Becky Fifield
Oct 16, 20143 min read
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Maryland Material Culture: Bushel Basket
Quiz: What does a Marylander most often associate with a bushel basket? Sure, you can put fruit or vegetables in it (pick-ur-own or...

Becky Fifield
Jun 13, 20141 min read
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Transportation Tuesday – B&O Centenary Pageant, 1927
Ladies in nymph-like attire twirling and leaping through fields – sounds like the turn of the century pageantry movement to me. The...

Becky Fifield
Jun 10, 20142 min read
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Don’t Confuse Geisha and Courtesans (Oiran and Tayu)
Images of geisha and courtesans are often mislabeled. For those unfamiliar with subtleties in the styling and wear of kimono, obi, and...

Becky Fifield
May 9, 20143 min read
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Christmas Dinner on the Rails
Christmas generally takes us to Maryland. While the Amtrak train I take travels over the Pennsylvania Railroad into Baltimore’s Penn...

Becky Fifield
Dec 24, 20131 min read
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Crossing Wright’s Ferry on the Susquehanna, 1787
The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge over the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, in the vicinity of Wright’s Ferry. U.S. Library of Congress,...

Becky Fifield
Nov 27, 20132 min read
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George Frideric Handel and The London Foundling Hospital
George Fredrich Handel. Public Domain. The Messiah, written by George Frideric Handel in 1741 and first performed in Dublin before its...

Becky Fifield
Nov 21, 20132 min read
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A Philadelphia Servant, 1787
The Accident in Lombard Street. Charles Wilson Peale. Winterthur Museum. 1962.88. A pie lays broken in the street, a distraught servant...

Becky Fifield
Nov 20, 20132 min read
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Bye Bye Schrafft’s: Losing More Unique Buildings on the UES
Schrafft’s at 155 E. 79th Street as it appeared in 1944. A “Rat Poison” sign appeared on the front door of 155 East 79th street....

Becky Fifield
Nov 7, 20131 min read
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Wanderlust Wednesday: Montresor
Could the US have a program of “The Most Beautiful Villages” as France does? Dr. V and I, and friends Jeremy W. of Le Cafe Witteveen and...

Becky Fifield
Oct 30, 20131 min read
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