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BECKY FIFIELD
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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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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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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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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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Transit Tuesday: Maryland *facepalm*
OK, we all know it, I’m obnoxiously devoted to my home state. So when I read current “transit” news about Maryland transportation...

Becky Fifield
Nov 5, 20132 min read
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Oyster Shuckers
I used to hate oysters. Typically, tidewater Marylanders pat oysters in cracker meal, fry them, and if you need a condiment, slather on...

Becky Fifield
Sep 5, 20132 min read
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Museum Monday – Chester County Historical Society
Chester County Historical Society. In addition to Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library, Wednesday also took me to the Chester...

Becky Fifield
Aug 5, 20131 min read
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Vanishing History: Recording African-American Burial Grounds
On a Sunday afternoon in 1992, I was collecting fallen autumn leaves along Chapel Road outside Havre de Grace, Maryland where my...

Becky Fifield
Jun 14, 20132 min read
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Gardening and Memory
The garden as family member, visible toward the right back. Photos marking family events and visits always took place in the yard. My...

Becky Fifield
Jun 6, 20132 min read
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Wanderlust Wednesday: 24 Rather Staid Hours in Baltimore
A conference, a presentation, a cancelled train, and dinner at the Red Star in Fells Point. All in 24 hours. The annual meeting of the...

Becky Fifield
May 29, 20132 min read
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A Maryland Breakfast: Fried Red Tomatoes in Cream Gravy
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...

Becky Fifield
Apr 5, 20131 min read
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Connecting the Dots: Convict Servants in Maryland
Eddie Izzard puns on the Church of England: “Cake or Death?” For people found guilty of committing small crimes in England,...

Becky Fifield
Apr 4, 20133 min read
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Museum Monday: Maryland State Archives in 2013
The stepped structure of the Maryland State Archives on Rowe Blvd, Annapolis. For a building built in 1984, I think the Maryland State...

Becky Fifield
Apr 1, 20134 min read
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Scarlet Fever!
The house on Paradise Road, Aberdeen, Maryland. My grandfather, S. Lee Bowman, returned from World War II in 1946 to marry Gurnice...

Becky Fifield
Mar 15, 20131 min read
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Post Offices for Sale
What is Westminster, Maryland’s claim to fame? Westminster, Maryland’s RFD Historical Marker. Besides being my childhood hometown, it was...

Becky Fifield
Mar 13, 20132 min read
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Communities Past: Former Commerce in Rock Run, Harford County, MD
Rock Run United Methodist Church. Harford County was a site of early Methodist activity in America. Rock Run, Harford County, Maryland....

Becky Fifield
Feb 22, 20131 min read
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Transit Tuesday: How do you get to Annapolis without a car?
I was peeved. During my Christmas break in Maryland, a winter storm blew in on the day I’d picked to spend some time at the state...

Becky Fifield
Jan 29, 20132 min read
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