Mr. I sent me a link recently to Atlas Obscura’s “The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trips.” It is...

Oil painting on canvas, Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Cherryburn, Northumberland, National Trust. NT 530359. In digging through the British...

I spent July at a Research Fellowship at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden. This mainly meant identifying manuscripts and object...

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...

I’m in residence at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden working on my 18th century runaway project and participating in a preventive...

My colleague and friend Rob Waller of Protect Heritage Corp. recently sent me a book he collaborated on in 1996, Developing Staff...

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

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

It’s a little bit untrue to title this small volume solely a book. It caught my eye while I was perusing the stacks last week at the New...

The New Yorker Photo Booth blog highlighted tattoed women and a book about them Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and...

The NYSL has old fashioned stacks, and up on Stack 11, I had been peering through books about railroad station design (alas, I did not...

McSorley’s. 2003. I just finished Dwight Garner’s “A Critic’s Tour of Literary Manhattan” in The New York Times (December 14, 2012). I’m...

Mourning miniature, 1788. Brooklyn Museum. 21.474. Twinkies. I’ve had a few. I’ve had more pink Snowballs and Suzy-Q’s than Twinkies. I...

Caraway and Salt Flatbreads from Agata & Valentina, NYC. RL Fifield 2012. Caraway. It’s lyrical. It’s herbal, savory, and astringent. My...

I was putting together another post on Amtrak when I stumbled across a New York Times Opinion on Amtrak’s Quiet Car by Tim Krieder. The...

Grab your mug, get some joe, and crack open The Coffee House: A Cultural History by Markman Ellis (Wenfield and Nicolson, 2004). I was...

As Winter settles around our shoulders, I like to consider what was considered seasonal fare in the eighteenth century. I’m a big fan of...

“Maid service is getting harder and harder to find at any price and only too often, even if you pay top wages, you will have to put up...

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

Go now, and visit the list at the Books That Shaped America  project at The Library of Congress. The exhibition opens June 25 on the 2nd...