My oldest friend, by which I mean the friend I have known the longest, leaves the country today. She is off on her first posting as an employee of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and over the next twenty or thirty years she will get to live in all sorts of interesting places.…… Continue reading My Oldest Friend
Tag: magpie herself
What you save
I declared my undergraduate major in History on the first day of classes of my sophomore year of college, September 2001. A handful of days later, what might have been an ordinary Tuesday became a historic event. I knew it was going to be what children in the next generation would ask me about, saying…… Continue reading What you save
11 September
This day had a huge impact on my undergraduate life. 2001 was the beginning of my sophomore year of college, in New York State, only about 2 hours by train from New York City. My parents and sister were in northern Virginia. When I finally understood the scale of what had happened, I knew it…… Continue reading 11 September
My Grandfather
My paternal grandfather died on Saturday. He turned 87 at the beginning of this month. I’m doing my best not to focus on the loss, on the fact that (more than likely) whoever I marry will never have met my wonderful grandfather, and think instead about what time I did have with him. After all,…… Continue reading My Grandfather
One man’s past is another man’s present
The last two days I have heard things on the local NPR station which very clearly brought to my attention how things I consider to be very much The Past are still The Present for others. The first was not a full story, but the lead for a story later on (which I didn’t hear).…… Continue reading One man’s past is another man’s present
A little secret
I twittered this earlier and a number of people have picked it up, so I figured I’d repost it here, for posterity (even if the Library of Congress has archived it somewhere): “The secret of many historians is that we’re gossips who are too polite to talk about the living”
Home Sweet Home
I started writing this post almost a year ago, when a number of stories all came together at once. There was NPR talking about the effect of the recession on home ownership, and a promotional piece from one of the local stations about a woman who was presenting her research on the Sears homes-selling method,…… Continue reading Home Sweet Home
Thoughts from Virginia Forum
I spent the last two days at my first Virginia Forum. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed myself.One of the strengths of the Forum is the diversity of the attendees: professors, graduate students, museum types (like me), university librarians, museum librarians, library librarians, archivists, historical society staff, independent scholars, and I’m…… Continue reading Thoughts from Virginia Forum
The Man Behind the Curtain
In case you don’t recognize the source of the post title, it’s from the Wizard of Oz (the film). All four travelers are in the Emerald City, awed by the Wizard, and then Toto pulls aside a little curtain to reveal an ordinary person. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” says the…… Continue reading The Man Behind the Curtain
Conincidence or Serendipity
My master’s thesis grew out of an internship at the National Museums of Scotland, checking a transcription of the only extant early 18th century Edinburgh goldsmith’s ledger and doing some digging into the goldsmith’s life. Within a few weeks of working with the ledger I knew that I wanted to study it extensively, and that…… Continue reading Conincidence or Serendipity