When I was working as an Archive Editor for the Vassar Review, I came across a diary written by an alumna named Christine Ladd Franklin. She attended Vassar between 1866 and 1869, just after the Civil War, but her voice leapt off the page with the clarity and wit of a modern woman. In one of her first entries, she wrote: “It is quite degrading to my high and lofty inspirations to be obliged to record them in so small and mean a book as this, but it is the best I can obtain.”

Christine was funny, sharp, and self-aware—mocking the tyranny of fashion and her peers in “black chamois.” I admire her now, reading her words in 2025, and see in her the same impulse that drives me: to document, to critique, to aspire.

This website is, I suppose, my own modest diary. Publishing my photography, writing, and investigative work here is not quite in line with my “high and lofty inspirations”—those are meant for real publications, ones that people tend to read. But this space is a beginning. A place to share how I work, think, and tell stories.

I am, above all, a storyteller. I’ve studied English Literature, Economic History, and Photography. I love Jane Austen, the rise of the plough and the Industrial Revolution, and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment.” I believe culture is shaped by stories—both the ones we inherit and the ones we seek out. My goal is to contribute to that lineage: by listening, by researching, and by creating.

Christine’s sharpest skill was her wit. Mine is my persistence—I can untangle any puzzle. I’ve sifted through 36,000 digitized documents in search of a single revealing letter. I’ve wandered the Diamond District asking jewelers to plate copper in silver to recreate a daguerreotype. I’m not intimidated by complexity. I live for the mess of truth—and the clarity of the revelatory moment.