Editor’s Letter
The editor’s introduction to the current issue.
Ad index
A guide to who is selling what in the current issue.
Buy a Copy
Order your own copy of the current issue.
FOR READERS
Calendar
History-related events occuring around the country.
Index
Find the issue in which a story or topic appeared.
Links
A quick connection to the websites of our friends and supporters.
Sources
Sources and resources for the stories that appear in our magazine.
INTERACT
Reader Exchange
Share your stuff or questions with other readers.
Write Us
Send an email to one of our staff.
Submit an Event
Send us information for your event to appear in our calendar.
Submit an Home
Suggest a home (even your own) for use to write about.
FOR WRITERS
Writers Guidelines
What we look for in freelance submissions to our magazine.
Photo Guidelines
Tips on taking photos we like and our photo requirements.
Stylebook
The style we use in our magazine for diction, punctuation, and typography.
DEPARTMENTS
Home
Go to our home page
Advertising
Send your message to our audience
Business
Partner with the magazine and sell it in your store
Circulation
Buy an issue or subscription or check your account
Directory
See the best traditional artists in America
Editorial
For those who read or want to write for the magazine
October 2020
the features
GERMAN FRUGALITY SAVED THIS HOUSE
Auctioneers Jeff and Beverley Evans restored an 1811 German stone farmhouse in western Virginia and transformed it into a showplace for regional antiques, particularly painted furniture, salt-glazed stoneware, and fraktur—with the added gleam of an extensive glass collection.
Julie and Reid Thomas
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
THE HUSKING BEE
Gathering neighbors to help with the corn harvest lightened the work of the farmer, who thanked the laborers with a meal and a fiddle player for later dancing in the barn. Some critics regarded the tradition, often more play than work, as a wicked and foolish frolic.
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
DO-IT-YOURSELF HISTORY
Jim and Laurel Prichard, who came of age in the 1960s, taught themselves how to build houses, and later, to craft signs for national retailers. As a “retirement” project (still underway), the Yankee transplants built a colonial-style home in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and furnished it with their own handiwork.
Winfield Ross
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
THE AMERICAN PANTRY
As colonists expanded their homes in the 18th Century, they often added utilitarian rooms for food preparation and storage near the kitchen. Called a pantry or butt’ry, these small rooms remained popular in American homes through the early 20th Century. We offer some tips for outfitting your period-style pantry.
Jeanmarie Andrews
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
FINDING LOST LONDON TOWN
Bypassed as a potential trade center and site of Maryland’s state capital, after
thriving for a century London Town eventually disappeared from the map. In the 1970s, archaeologists dug into the acreage surrounding the lone surviving building to uncover the lost town. Reconstructed, its vernacular buildings reflect common life.
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
COOKING UP QUINCE
Prized by our ancestors for its heady fragrance, tasty flesh, and delicious preserves, the quince faded from gardens as people turned away from home food preservation and embraced softer fruits for their desserts. We invite you to take another look at the golden apples favored by Olympian goddesses.
Winfield Ross
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
BUILD A SIMPLE BIRDHOUSE
With simple materials and tools, you can entice songbirds into your landscape thatched-roof birdhouse. Built from a hollowed log with a corn broom, this rustic shelter will protect smaller birds from larger predatory species.
Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
AMERICAN SILK
The production of silk fabric, which originated in China, came early to America when King James I directed the Jamestown colonists to plant mulberry trees and raise silk-producing caterpillars. Sericulture briefly flourished in the Southern states, moved north to Connecticut, and eventually settled in the South and West, making America the largest silk fabric producer by the late 1800s.