History Conversations REWIND | Negative Space: Rebecca G. Fields, Owner and Proprietor of the Montgomery County Sentinel, 1871-1930

Any history of Montgomery County’s oldest newspaper of record 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 industry, 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.

Originally presented at the 2023 Fall History Conference.