This weekend, Dr. V, Jake, and myself went up to Albany to visit the New York State Museum. We had the very good luck of running into...

David W. Dunlap writes the rather fun Building Blocks column for The New York Times. On December 30, 2015, his contribution was titled...

RL Fifield vacuuming samplers with a dental vacuum in the old Textile Conservation Lab, MFA Boston, 2001. Back in the early aughts, I was...

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’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...

Images of geisha and courtesans are often mislabeled. For those unfamiliar with subtleties in the styling and wear of kimono, obi, and...

Better known as the PATH, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad began shuttling passengers through its cast iron tunnels between Manhattan...

Schrafft’s at 155 E. 79th Street as it appeared in 1944. A “Rat Poison” sign appeared on the front door of 155 East 79th street....

A few photos from a trip to Taormina, Sicily. It was early March and nearly desolate of tourists: perfect. Vegetation on the way to the...

Chester County Historical Society. In addition to Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library, Wednesday also took me to the Chester...

My research on indentured and enslaved servants’ lives has led me to mapping out their existence on historic maps of Philadelphia. I’m...

Thumbs up: Indianapolis. Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station on a Saturday night, the usual bustle gone. The World War I memorial. RL...

I was really impressed with downtown Indianapolis. Ambitious restaurants. People on the streets. Bike Lanes. A canal walk trimmed with...

The garden as family member, visible toward the right back. Photos marking family events and visits always took place in the yard. My...

An embroidered apron at LACMA, similar in concept to those depicted in the Winterthur fraktur below. M.2007.211.131 I’m not a...

Just barely. RL Fifield 2013. Dr. V. indulged my whim to visit the assemblage of historic trains at New York’s Grand Central Terminal...

The end of March found my mom and I in southern Arizona. My great uncle Mr. B has a cattle ranch outside of Tucson, where he set up...

I was scooting through my apartment building’s basement (a wonder in systems and architecture) on my way to pick up a package at the...

What is Westminster, Maryland’s claim to fame? Westminster, Maryland’s RFD Historical Marker. Besides being my childhood hometown, it was...