Museum Monday: Maryland State Archives in 2013

For a building built in 1984, I think the Maryland State Archives inspires. Maybe it strikes a chord with me akin to the library buildings of my childhood. Unlike it’s colonial and colonial revival ancestors further down Rowe Blvd in … Continue reading

Shifting Garment Styles, 1750-1790: What Research and Sketching Have in Common

Historical research is like sketching. You begin with a few pieces of data, allowing you to make some bold strokes on a piece of white paper. You identify what sorts of primary resources will improve that image, and it redirects … Continue reading

Museum Monday: The Closure of the Georgia State Archives

When I saw the news article about the closure to the public of the Georgia State Archives, I had to read it a couple of times. Surely, I had missed something. Isn’t public access to the documents of their history … Continue reading

Museum Monday: A Questionable Practice – Museums Charging for Collections Research Time

I am a museum collection manager with over twenty years working with museum collections. I started cataloging costume objects when I was sixteen during my summer tour guide job at the Carroll County Farm Museum. I recently approached a local history … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Researching Museum Collections for Living History Practitioners

I’m a Collections Manager in a large New York City institution. My first museum job was as a thirteen year old volunteer at a “living history” state park, Heritage Hill, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Living history generally denotes that the … Continue reading

Names of the Forgotten – Runaway Clothing Database Project

While I started the Runaway Clothing Database to study dress of the working class as listed in newspaper runaway advertisements, there are so many tangents to the project. The project seeks to catalog in a database runaway indentured and enslaved … Continue reading

The Act of Research – London Metropolitan Archives Edition

The National Archives, the DAR Library in Washington, the Maryland State Archives, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the London Metropolitan Archives, Library of Congress, and so forth. I love the click of the microfilm drawer, the smell of old paper, the … Continue reading