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
December 2020
the features
DONE TO A TURN
A rotisserie is the best way to roast meats and fowl to even doneness but a tiring task when you have to turn the spit without electricity. Our ingenious
ancestors invented early labor saving innovations for even cooking from a special breed of dogs to spin the spit to elaborate mechanisms that turned like clockwork.
Tom Kelleher
Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
KEEPING HISTORY ALIVE
Serial restorers Jenay and Dave Evans found the 1780s home of a Minuteman in Seekonk, Massachusetts, and turned it into a surprisingly bright and airy home for their family and collection 18th and 19th Century country-style of antiques.
Dawn C. Adiletta
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
THE BEAUTY OF BROWN
Invented in England in the 18th Century, a translucent brown glaze called Rockingham soon became a favorite finish for American yellow ware. Nearly every household likely had a piece or several of the glowing brown pottery either as useful tableware or decorative sculpture.
Jeanmarie Andrews
Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
WALKING THROUGH HISTORY
Spread over 200 acres in Staunton, Virginia, the Frontier Culture Museum is a living history museum with a different approach—instead of a single town or farm, it shows how traditions from around the world came together to form the beliefs and values of pioneers in Appalachia and the Shenandoah Valley.
Winfield Ross
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
TUDOR AMERICA
James I, the first Stewart King of England, was on the throne when the first Englishmen founded Jamestown but its was his ancestors, the Tudor Dynasty, that was determined to make a go of America and their efforts were important in shaping our shared history.
Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
BARLEY SUGAR
When sugar was rare and expensive, it was treated only as a spice, a medicine, and a status symbol. But as America was settled, sugar became cheap and evolved into candy. Barley sugar was one of the first medicines to make the transition and likely was a treat in many colonial children’s holiday stockings.
Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
ISLAND SURVIVOR AND SAVIOR
The oldest Moravian church in the America (and Western Hemisphere) sits proudly on a hill on the tiny island of Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands. Once a working plantation dedicated to educating slaves and saving their souls, the continuing mission of its island congregation is helping the surrounding community.
See Sources
Make Comment
Read Comments
JEWELS MADE FROM SAND
To make multiple pieces of jewelry, silversmiths in early America relied on the ancient practice of making molds for the molten metal out of packed sand. A skilled artisan and Directory artist shows us step-by-step how they did it.