Lionel Model Trains

Figure 1. Wooden locomotive with iron wheel fittings from a late nineteenth-century context at the Magruder House (18MO324). This simple wooden train would have been pushed along the floor or pulled by a string—a far cry from the Lionel Corporation’s electric powered model trains. With … Continue reading →

From Tongs to Dredges: Changes in Chesapeake Bay Oystering Technology

Figure 1. Oyster shell recovered by archaeologists at the late 19th-century home of Black watermen in Calvert County, Maryland. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. The National Oyster Festival, celebrating the American oyster, Crassotrea virginica (Figure 1), … Continue reading →

Food the Old-Fashioned Way-Getting Groceries in 19th-Century Baltimore

In the days before Uber Eats and DoorDash, Baltimore’s residents got their food the old-fashioned way—by purchasing ingredients and preparing it themselves at home. While some residents tended small gardens, raised fowl, or worked the local waterways for fish, oysters, crabs, and other … Continue reading →

American Midwifery at the Turn-of-the-Twentieth Century

Figure 1. Bone mouth guard for a baby bottle with surviving rubber in the center. From the Albemarle Rowhouse site (18BC50/40H-292). This month’s featured artifact is a bone mouth guard, which would have been used with a baby feeding bottle in the second half of the 19th and early 20th … Continue reading →

“American Housewives—Generals at Home in Defense”: Victory Gardens and WWII*

Growing vegetables and fruits, raising livestock, and preserving the food created from these efforts have long been an important part of home economics. During times of national crisis, like the U. S. Great Depression or the two world wars, these activities took on additional significance and … Continue reading →