I used to hate oysters. Typically, tidewater Marylanders pat oysters in cracker meal, fry them, and if you need a condiment, slather on...

A few photos from a trip to Taormina, Sicily. It was early March and nearly desolate of tourists: perfect. Vegetation on the way to the...

To sleep in your car – completely American? Or not normal? Here’s the Thing, Alec Baldwin’s excellent radio program. I’m not much of a...

Nothing like a little research day on my birthday. Quarter Session Docket, June 1, 1767. Philadelphia City Archives. During my stay at...

Chester County Historical Society. In addition to Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library, Wednesday also took me to the Chester...

Back in May, I gave a lecture on collections emergency preparedness at the New York Archives Conference. It was supposed to be a...

My research on indentured and enslaved servants’ lives has led me to mapping out their existence on historic maps of Philadelphia. I’m...

On a Sunday afternoon in 1992, I was collecting fallen autumn leaves along Chapel Road outside Havre de Grace, Maryland where my...

An embroidered apron at LACMA, similar in concept to those depicted in the Winterthur fraktur below. M.2007.211.131 I’m not a...

Read this great book on 18th century commerce in the backwoods of Virginia. Ann Smart Martin’s Buying into the World of Goods: Early...

The end of March found my mom and I in southern Arizona. My great uncle Mr. B has a cattle ranch outside of Tucson, where he set up...

Hello Readers of The Still Room! I’ve missed writing posts for the blog, but have been putting my energies into some projects that may be...

I recently visited my great uncle, Uncle B, in Arizona. Having left our ancestral seat for a life of western adventure in 1947, we don’t...

Eddie Izzard puns on the Church of England: “Cake or Death?” For people found guilty of committing small crimes in England,...

The house on Paradise Road, Aberdeen, Maryland. My grandfather, S. Lee Bowman, returned from World War II in 1946 to marry Gurnice...

What is Westminster, Maryland’s claim to fame? Westminster, Maryland’s RFD Historical Marker. Besides being my childhood hometown, it was...

Stitchers inside Dewey Memorial Hall, Sheffield, Massachusetts. Sheffield resident Lisa R. and I met through Revolutionary War...

Rock Run United Methodist Church. Harford County was a site of early Methodist activity in America. Rock Run, Harford County, Maryland....

New York City’s subway opened in 1904. During an era of competing private lines that radiated from the heart of Manhattan into the...

At this point during the winter, I start to get the itch for digging in the dirt. Alas, it’s a rather pointless itch as I must confine my...