Becky Fifield
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
The Still Room Blog
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Becky Fifield
- Nov 20, 2013
- 2 min
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...
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Becky Fifield
- Aug 29, 2013
- 2 min
Catering to Clients in an 18th Century Philadelphia Shop
I spent July at a Research Fellowship at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden. This mainly meant identifying manuscripts and object...
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Becky Fifield
- Aug 8, 2013
- 2 min
Digging in the Archives: Philadelphia City Archives
Nothing like a little research day on my birthday. Quarter Session Docket, June 1, 1767. Philadelphia City Archives. During my stay at...
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Becky Fifield
- Aug 1, 2013
- 1 min
Digging in the Archives: Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library
My time here at Winterthur is wrapping up. I took yesterday to visit two incredible local institutions, the Friends Historical Library at...
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Becky Fifield
- Jul 5, 2013
- 1 min
Historic Philadelphia Mapping Resources
My research on indentured and enslaved servants’ lives has led me to mapping out their existence on historic maps of Philadelphia. I’m...
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Becky Fifield
- May 30, 2013
- 2 min
What I’ve Been Reading: Buying Into A World of Goods by Ann Smart Martin
Read this great book on 18th century commerce in the backwoods of Virginia. Ann Smart Martin’s Buying into the World of Goods: Early...
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Becky Fifield
- Apr 4, 2013
- 3 min
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,...
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Becky Fifield
- Jan 28, 2013
- 2 min
(Music Plays) Lydia, The Tattoed Lady – An eighteenth century woman’s tattoo
The New Yorker Photo Booth blog highlighted tattoed women and a book about them Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and...
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Becky Fifield
- Dec 21, 2012
- 2 min
Shifting Garment Styles, 1750-1790: What Research and Sketching Have in Common
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,...
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Becky Fifield
- Sep 29, 2012
- 2 min
Halloween Comes to Downton Abbey
I predicted in this post from April that people would be hot to trot for Downton Abbey influenced costumes this Halloween. True to form,...
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Becky Fifield
- Sep 7, 2012
- 2 min
Nanny – A Servant Wager Cup
Online databases are incredible tools. While my museum career has mostly focused on textiles, dress, and ethnographic materials, I never...
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Becky Fifield
- Aug 5, 2012
- 1 min
Runaway Scavenger Hunt
In researching the lives of indentured and enslaved women during the 18th century, I’m trying to rebuild their communities, to better...
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Becky Fifield
- Jul 22, 2012
- 1 min
Stocking Washing
The summer is full of living history events, and moreso, the laundry that follows a hot sweaty weekend out in a field without a shower....
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Becky Fifield
- Jul 20, 2012
- 2 min
Variety Among the 18th Century Lesser Sorts
Der Wöchentliche Pennsylvanische Staatsbote 9/17/1773. As part of my research on 18thcentury working class clothing, I have been studying...
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Becky Fifield
- Jun 23, 2012
- 1 min
Names of the Forgotten – Runaway Clothing Database Project
Maryland Gazette, August 9, 1787. Library of Congress. RL Fifield photo. The Runaway Clothing Database project uses newspaper runaway...
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Becky Fifield
- May 27, 2012
- 2 min
Following Eleanor Ferrell: A Runaway Indentured Servant
New: see the full article online here. If it doesn’t come up, go to the home page and search again. Abraham Emmit labeled her “an ill...
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