Get a sharp knife, some scissors, and good luck. I remember the first time I opened Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres Handbook.  I laughed...

George Harrison Bowman, child of John Bowman and Ann Baker Both of my great great great grandparents died in 1857, leaving my fifteen...

It’s not all sauerbraten and rouladen. I was pleasantly surprised by incredible salads, grilled fish, and lots of mushrooms while in...

I was inspired by this salted paper print from the 1850s of people posing for a photograph on a Baltimore and Ohio engine. I thought...

Speaking as a museum professional and a living history practitioner, what a great project. Theatrical designer Thomas John Bernard and...

RL Fifield performing Botan with Ichifujikai in 2006. My height earned me male roles, along with accompanying tummy padding under my...

One of the unexpected gems is the artistic and scientific wonderment that is the first electric street lamp, invented by Charles F. Brush...

Online databases are incredible tools. While my museum career has mostly focused on textiles, dress, and ethnographic materials, I never...

Some old women’s magazines from the 1940s turned up when we emptied my grandparents’ house. You would expect the articles and...

Leaving the historic Ferry Building. RL Fifield 2010. We are off to Governor’s Island at some point this weekend. Whereas tourists seek...

The El still lives on in Chicago – I’m not sure that they could live without it. But the El once was a vital part of New York...

Lewis Hine’s photographs will always remind us of the successes of the Labor Movement. The title of this image is Addie Card, 12 years....

The garments draped over the racks in the golden scene depicted on this screen raise questions about the woman who left them there. The...

I’ll have the Scollop of Oysters, hartychokes, cold lobster, and olive pudding! Winterthur has in their collections the Dinner Book of...

Yes, Luxembourg is a tiny country, but I wish I’d spent more than an evening there. In Europe, if you are stuck at the airport hotel,...

Say it with me: Hauptbahnhof. What a great word “train station” is in German. I was recently in Germany for work and I had a free day to...

Lecturing at the Bergen County Historical Society, March 2011. I’m a Collections Manager in a large New York City institution. My first...

This woodblock print in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts The Geisha Toye as a Vendor of Poems, and dates to c. 1795. Geisha were...

Gurnice Stephens. Harford County, Maryland. 1944. It’s no secret, I can see the search terms readers use to get to The Still Room. Some I...

This  finger-wag at women about appropriately dividing their time between pleasure and work is fun to sing. Interesting that work is...