Becky Fifield
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...
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Becky Fifield
Jan 1, 20152 min read
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...
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Becky Fifield
May 9, 20143 min read
Don’t Confuse Geisha and Courtesans (Oiran and Tayu)
Images of geisha and courtesans are often mislabeled. For those unfamiliar with subtleties in the styling and wear of kimono, obi, and...
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Becky Fifield
Nov 21, 20132 min read
George Frideric Handel and The London Foundling Hospital
George Fredrich Handel. Public Domain. The Messiah, written by George Frideric Handel in 1741 and first performed in Dublin before its...
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Becky Fifield
Nov 20, 20132 min read
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
Sep 5, 20132 min read
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...
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Becky Fifield
Aug 29, 20132 min read
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, 20132 min read
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, 20131 min read
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 25, 20131 min read
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...
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Becky Fifield
Jul 5, 20131 min read
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 31, 20131 min read
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...
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Becky Fifield
May 30, 20132 min read
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
May 6, 20132 min read
Museum Monday: All the Goings On…
Hello Readers of The Still Room! I’ve missed writing posts for the blog, but have been putting my energies into some projects that may be...
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Becky Fifield
Apr 12, 20132 min read
A Very Scary Moment in a Dark Alley: Trashing a Disney Princess Kitchen
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...
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Becky Fifield
Apr 4, 20133 min read
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
Apr 1, 20134 min read
Museum Monday: Maryland State Archives in 2013
The stepped structure of the Maryland State Archives on Rowe Blvd, Annapolis. For a building built in 1984, I think the Maryland State...
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Becky Fifield
Feb 14, 20132 min read
Curious Objects: Portrait Collages at the National Portrait Gallery
Collage of engraved portraits on exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in “A Will of their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of...
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Becky Fifield
Jan 28, 20132 min read
(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, 20122 min read
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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