Negative Space: The Life of Rebecca G. Fields, Publisher and Proprietor of the Montgomery County Sentinel, 1871-1930
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Authors
Hedlund, Sarah
Issue Date
2024-06
Relation
Vol. 67;No. 2
Language
en_US
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Abstract
The traditional history of Montgomery County’s oldest newspaper of record, the Montgomery County Sentinel, will contain the following information:
“The Sentinel was founded in 1855 by Matthew Fields, a Confederate sympathizer who was arrested during the
Civil War for his opinions. After his death in 1871, his widow took over the publication.” The story almost
always ends there…but the full story of “his widow” has barely begun. Rebecca Fields was a rare woman
business owner in a male-dominated business, and she ran that business for almost 60 years after her
husband’s death. She was a complicated and unconventional woman whose true thoughts, opinions, attitudes,
and politics are simultaneously known and unknowable, hidden in the white space between lines of type and
glimpsed in the thinnest threads of her descendants’ memories. Archivist and researcher Sarah Hedlund
uncovers the life and career of one of Montgomery County’s most overlooked historical figures, in search of
the woman behind the press.
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Citation
Publisher
Montgomery History