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BECKY FIFIELD
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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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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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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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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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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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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...

Becky Fifield
Aug 29, 20132 min read
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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...

Becky Fifield
Aug 1, 20131 min read
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A Squeal of Delight at the Indianapolis Museum of Art: Miniature Dresses
RL Fifield. I attended the American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting in Indianapolis at the end of May. The opening reception...

Becky Fifield
Jul 25, 20131 min read
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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...

Becky Fifield
Jul 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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Fun with Fraktur – Women’s Dress in a Drawing from Winterthur Museum
An embroidered apron at LACMA, similar in concept to those depicted in the Winterthur fraktur below. M.2007.211.131 I’m not a...

Becky Fifield
May 31, 20131 min read
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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...

Becky Fifield
May 30, 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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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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The Gardening Itch
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...

Becky Fifield
Feb 15, 20131 min read
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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,...

Becky Fifield
Dec 21, 20122 min read
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Transportation Tuesday: Time to Get Geeky – The Amtrak History Website
Perhaps Amtrak is a little late for many rail fans, but the Amtrak history website led to me losing a few hours last night while I poked...

Becky Fifield
Nov 27, 20121 min read
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Caraway.
Caraway and Salt Flatbreads from Agata & Valentina, NYC. RL Fifield 2012. Caraway. It’s lyrical. It’s herbal, savory, and astringent. My...

Becky Fifield
Nov 23, 20122 min read
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Cleveland’s West Side Market
My brother Mr. F is Cleveland’s Man about Town. During my May visit, he toured me around a number of sites and neighborhoods, including...

Becky Fifield
Nov 17, 20122 min read
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