Transportation Tuesday: Winterthur’s Train Station

You had to know that the DuPonts would have had their own train station for their 2400-acre estate outside of Wilmington, DE. I’m living at Winterthur for the month while participating in a preventive conservation exchange and researching how 18th … Continue reading

Museum Monday – WNYC Municipal Archives Online

Back in May, I gave a lecture on collections emergency preparedness at the New York Archives Conference. It was supposed to be a roundtable during which institutions shared their preparedness experiences and ideas, but seeing as Heritage Preservation’s Heritage Health Index … Continue reading

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 hoping to better understand their relation to the community, merchants, and manufacturers in their environment. I’ve found some … Continue reading

Vanishing History: Recording African-American Burial Grounds

On a Sunday afternoon in 1992, I was collecting fallen autumn leaves along Chapel Road outside Havre de Grace, Maryland where my grandparents lived. I no longer remember what the leaves were for. My boyfriend lifted me on his shoulders … Continue reading

Fun with Fraktur – Women’s Dress in a Drawing from Winterthur Museum

I’m not a Pennsylvanian German scholar, but I love considering the depiction of 18th century dress in the ebullient art form of fraktur. What is real? What is fancy? Can we trust depictions of women when they hold gargantuan sprigs … Continue reading

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 Consumers in Backcountry Virginia is incredibly readable (and available on Kindle to boot! Or in full at … Continue reading

Trans. Tuesday: We Survived The Parade of Trains

Just barely. Dr. V. indulged my whim to visit the assemblage of historic trains at New York’s Grand Central Terminal last weekend, May 11, 2013: National Train Day. For a moment there, I felt like we were part of a … Continue reading

Working with the Dixon Ledgers, Port Royal, Virginia

My personal research focuses on the dress of indentured and enslaved servant women from 1750-1790. While I was in DC for work recently, I was able to slip over to the Library of Congress for a couple of hours and … Continue reading