The gardens of Williamsburg, large or small, are generally formal, reflecting the symmetrical character of eighteenth-century architecture.
Such mannered gardens must also have provided a pleasant contrast to the wilderness which surrounded the early colonists. A kitchen garden and pleasure garden, with a few carefully selected fruit trees, were arranged in a balanced fashion and linked by marl or brick paths to the associated house, outbuildings, and service areas. Thus the typical Williamsburg layout was a miniature plantation compressed to fit within the bounds of a city lot.
Gardens for cooks were connected to the kitchen by brick paths.
Most gardens are based on English precedents, and offer strong evidence of the Dutch influence introduced into England by William and Mary. The designs, whether square, circular, oval, or rectangular, are usually outlined with fences, walls, or hedges of evergreen material such as box and holly; this extensive use of evergreen gives a distinctive character to Williamsburg gardens. Through most of the year color is added by flowers or by flowering trees and shrubs. Decorative walls, gates, and vases are used in the more elaborate gardens, and many include topiary work (trees or shrubs clipped to formal or quaint shapes).
In restoring Williamsburg gardens, landscape architects relied on excavations, manuscripts, old maps of the town and other southern colonial towns, and on studies of surviving colonial gardens in this general area. Only plants known to the colonists in the eighteenth century have been used.
Restored Williamsburg reflects the social history of colonial and Revolutionary America. It attempts to tell the story of men of "the middling sort" who conducted respectable if unpublicized businesses, and who provided support for the new nation in the making; support, that is, not only in the form of the boots or bayonets they manufactured for the army, but also in the form of votes and military service and loyalty and belief in self-government.
One of the most effective ways to peer into this everyday world is to visit the craft shops of Colonial Williamsburg. Here, in the costume of his or her predecessor, the craftsman works with the sturdy tools of colonial days, fashioning articles of beauty, character, and utility. Some trades represented are those of the cabinet-maker, blacksmith, cobbler, silversmith, printer, book-binder, and baker. The modest businessman of the eighteenth century may be found at work again in the apothecary shop and at the wigmaker's. On the distaff side may be seen the milliner and the weaver.
To Purchase or Learn About Authentic Reproductions:
Restored Williamsburg has dual heritage. It recalls not only those years when Williamsburg served as the seat of government for Britain's largest colony in America, but also the turbulent period when it was the political headquarters for Virginia patriots who were to have an important part in overthrowing the rule of the Crown. It is an irony of history that the capital of Britain's "Old Dominion" is best known to posterity as a center of protest against British authority.
Virginia's Elite become Catalysts for Independence:
In the crucial decades before the Revolution, Williamsburg was a training and proving ground for leaders. Here George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee met and debated with other gifted contemporaries; their discussions and their written words did much to shape the course of America. When Williamsburg's own liberty bell in the trim belfry of Bruton Parish Church rang out the news of the Declaration of Independence, a significant period of transition came to an end; a transformation was complete. The city was changed from the proud capital of a crown colony to the even prouder capital of a new commonwealth in a new nation.
But, of wider importance than the concerns of one state or one country, eighteenth-century Williamsburg embodied concepts of lasting importance to all men everywhere. The concept of the integrity of the individual. During the eighteenth century, man's respect for his fellow man grew. Politicians and philosophers alike shared a new awareness of the inherent dignity of every person. In colonial Virginia, this concept was best represented and expressed by Thomas Jefferson, although within the terms and conspicuous limitations of his time. As documents and debates of the period indicate, this appreciation of the importance of the individual was continuous and fundamental in the struggle for freedom and self-government. It remains today the essential motive of any free society. The concept of responsible leadership. Virginia's planter aristocracy, trained to leadership from youth, accepted public obligations without question. The ruling class, composed of the larger plantation owners, merchants, and professional men, felt a deep responsibility for the welfare of the colony. They willingly served as legislators in Williamsburg, as justices of the peace, and as vestrymen in their own parishes. Washington, for example, was conscientious both in attending sessions of the House of Burgesses and meetings of the vestry of Truro Parish. Such services were rendered whether or not they proved costly to private business ventures or inconvenient to personal plans. These characteristic qualities of experience and leadership in public affairs were of immeasurable importance in developing the generation of Virginia patriots who took an important part in the Revolution and in the formation of the new republic.
Belief in self-government. From 1619, when the first representative assembly in America met at Jamestown, Virginians increasingly came to believe themselves capable of handling their own public affairs. They recognized the traditional over-all authority and prerogative of the Crown, but resented any interference in their internal government on the part of a distant Parliament. Thus Patrick Henry dared to speak heatedly against the Stamp Act at the Williamsburg Capitol in 1765. Ultimately, when legal and constitutional means had failed to secure enough political autonomy for Virginians, the colonial leaders saw revolution and independence as the only means to achieve their ends. This devotion to the principles of self-government was the chief cause of the Revolution in Virginia.
The concept of individual liberties. Virginians believed that they, as British subjects, possessed important individual liberties and rights rooted in Magna Carta. The protection of these rights by colonial legislation culminated in the Virginia Declaration of Rights. This great document, drafted by George Mason and adopted unanimously in 1776 by the legislators assembled at the Capitol, asserted that "all men are by nature equally free and independent," and set forth in sixteen articles such fundamental rights as freedom of religion and the press; trial by jury; free elections; and the subordination of military to civil authority. Virginia's Declaration of Rights influenced the Declaration of Independence and later became the basis for the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It is the greatest single document to be associated with Williamsburg, and has been influential in all free nations of the world.
The concept of opportunity. The colonization of Virginia is a chapter in the story of mankind's old dream of establishing a more abundant life in a new land. Those who undertook the hazardous and costly voyage did so chiefly because they wanted a better chance for themselves and their children. Virginia offered a new measure of individual and political freedom, a class structure less rigid than that of England, the opportunities of a growing colony, and the lure of new lands and a frontier pushing westward.
These five concepts were fused and given deeper significance by an underlying appreciation of the moral and spiritual values of life. The great Virginians of eighteenth-century Williamsburg faced personal or public problems with an abiding faith in God and their fellow men. This faith was basic to their life and work.
Today, Williamsburg stands as a symbol of one of the most impressive eras of the American past: an era of ideas as well as actions which together helped to shape a young republic. There is much in Williamsburg to recall the color and drama of the colonial city, and the eventful everyday life of Virginia's capital. There is also the opportunity to see Williamsburg as an affirmation of the spiritual vigor which must underlie any strong democratic society.
Prelude to Independence Each year, from May 15 through July 4, the Prelude to Independence period is celebrated, in tribute to those crucial days in 1776 when Virginia's legislators made their greatest contributions to America's heritage. The Virginia Resolution for American Independence, adopted unanimously at the Capitol on May 15, set in motion the momentous events which culminated on July 4 in the Declaration of Independence itself, drafted largely by Virginia's red-headed young statesman, Thomas Jefferson. And, on June 12, 1776, George Mason's Declaration of Rights was adopted, also without a dissenting vote, later to become the basis for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution-the Federal Bill of Rights.
The site of Williamsburg was first occupied in 1633 by Middle Plantation, a stockaded settlement erected against Indian attack by hard-pressed colonists from near by Jamestown. Although the College of William and Mary was founded here in 1693, Middle Plantation was only a small village throughout the seventeenth century. In 1699 it consisted of the main college building, several houses, an ordinary, two mills, a smith's shop, and a few stores, clustered around a brick church and graveyard.
Colonists looking forward to time spent in Williamsburg...
In 1698 the Statehouse at Jamestown was leveled by fire, and the following year the legislators decided to move their capital to Middle Plantation, which they renamed Williamsburg in honor of the reigning English king, William III. Jamestown at that time was a crowded, cluttered town surrounded by brackish swamps which bred disease. It is easy to see why Williamsburg, serenely located on a broad ridge between the York and James rivers, was preferred.
From 1699 until the dark war year of 1780, when the capital was moved to Richmond, Williamsburg was the political, social, and cultural center of the entire colony. Here the royal governor lived, the Assembly convened, and the courts sat. Twice each year, when the general court was in session, crowds came to Williamsburg for "Publick Times." The population of the town (normally only about 2000) doubled almost overnight. Taverns were jammed. Shops were stocked with the latest goods imported from London. There were horse races, fairs, and formal balls. Auctions were held at various taverns and at Market Square. For several weeks the city hummed with activity.
In Williamsburg's new H-shaped brick Capitol - the first statehouse to be called a "capitol" since Roman times-laws were passed affecting a vast territory which stretched westward to the Mississippi. Virginia was the largest and most populous of all the British colonies. Although distant settlements could never be fully controlled, every person in the enormous British domain of Virginia was subject to the government at Williamsburg - large planters and small freeholders in the Tidewater and Piedmont; merchants and dock hands at the busy wharves in Norfolk; settlers searching for pitch, tar, and turpentine in the Dismal Swamp on the North Carolina border; German immigrant ironworkers in Spotsylvania; tenants on Lord Fairfax' baronial estate of five million acres of the Northern Neck; frontiersmen and the agents of land speculators deep in Indian territory on the banks of the Ohio.
Williamsburg was chiefly a planters' capital, however. The ruling class of Virginia was largely dependent upon the growth and sale of tobacco, that broad-leafed "Imperial weed" which John Rolfe had learned to cure in 1612. Some of the planters lived in the Piedmont, rolling country beyond the fall line of the rivers, but most of the leaders of this aristocracy came from the Tidewater. Presiding over a plantation which was a miniature village, the large planter lived most of the time in his mansion house, usually close by one of the many convenient waterways. But he spent many weeks of the year in Williamsburg, where he sometimes built or rented a town house for convenience when called to the city by politics or business. Otherwise he stayed in one of the numerous taverns, many of which were located along Duke of Gloucester Street near the Capitol.
A German immigrant blacksmith works on anvil.
The brief "house histories" which constitute the main text of this guidebook may offer some insight into the life of this bygone century. It was a crude life by modern standards. The death rate of children was appalling. The "average" man - perhaps the small freeholder-had little formal education. Wives had few legal rights. Boys were apprenticed to a trade when only fourteen. The brutal slave trade flourished. Besides the slaves, there were many white "indentured servants" (those who sold their services for a period of years in exchange for passage from England), living in a state of virtual bondage. Some of these were criminals whose sentences had been commuted to deportation.
Yet life in colonial Virginia had many rewards. The advancing frontier offered opportunities. Even those who were indentured could look forward to freedom and a future brighter than could usually be attained in England. It was also a hospitable period. There were country jigs as well as minuets; there was plenty to eat and drink; and the hand of authority did not bear too heavily on most Virginians. It was an age of change, activity, and promise.
Each visitor to Williamsburg today steps back across the bridge of years to the little city which for nearly a century was capital of the Virginia Colony and focus of a proud plantation society. Eighteenth-century buildings, furnishings, and gardens again take their original form in this significant community. Trim carriages once more roll along Duke of Gloucester Street, a broad public way described by the late President Roosevelt as "the most historic avenue in all America." Since 1927, when the first colonial house was acquired, the American past has been brought to life in an area nearly a mile in length. This work has been carried out by Colonial Williamsburg, Incorporated, a non-profit organization dedicated to the purpose "That the Future May Learn from the Past." The visitor to Williamsburg will see the neat, weather-boarded houses of colonial days, with their broad brick Virginia chimneys, set in formal gardens, together with handsome English and American furnishings in the many buildings open to the public. Restoration work has been carried out to the smallest detail, whether in a modillion cornice, in the selection of authentic plants for each herb garden, or in accessories such as the "chagrine case of Raisors" in the governor's bedroom at the Palace. Every effort has been made not only to exhibit all this evidence of the past, but also to re-create a living community. The blacksmith works with ancient tools in shaping his metal, and the hostesses in the Exhibition Buildings wear appropriate farthingales. These buildings and their landscaped gardens offer a laboratory in which the life and times of Washington, Jefferson, George Mason, Patrick Henry, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, and other leaders may better be understood. Thus along with the texture and the fabric of physical restoration should go understanding of the way of life of colonial Virginia and appreciation of the heritage created amid these impressive surroundings.
This map may be studied for the descriptions and locations of primary architecture of Williamsburg prior to 1955. There are new buildings that have been added in current history that are not present on this version of the map, but it is still good for dolls and kids to print for their own play experiences.
Dolls small enough to fit in a child's pocket, backpack or purse. American Girl mini dolls travel easy, cost less, and are fun to make all kinds of accessories/furnishings for! I purchased our mini dolls from a second-hand market. Throughout our virtual vacation, I will be making historical crafts for these mini Felicity and Elizabeth dolls.
For the visitor's convenience in identifying buildings wherever she may find herself in Williamsburg, the house histories in this Guidebook have been grouped by streets.
Because of their architectural, historical, or practical interest a few additional locations which do not fall within the above map, have been included in the listing below as well.
During the early 1940s, "young children in a class taught by Mrs. Freddie Mea Stephens, of Oklahoma City, Okla., told the teacher that whenever got a gift it was food, clothing, or something useful. They never seemed to get anything to play with. Mrs. Stephens was not able to provide all of them with toys of their own, but she did the next best thing. She started a lending library for dolls and other playthings in her school, and the practice has spread to other to other schools in the city. Mrs. Stephens obtained her first dolls by going to a department store, inquiring about any left over from the Christmas rush, or slightly damaged, and in this way obtained a dozen for $1.00 each. Soon the dolls were in need of repair and Mrs. Stephens learned how to repair them. One summer she attended a special school in Denver in doll making.
CC photograph by Stockwell, 1949 toy lending program.
At first, all the dolls were white, but since the patrons of her library were Negro children, she thought they should have colored dolls, and experimented with painting them. Each Negro school in Oklahoma City has a library now of 12 or 15 dolls. In addition, sand buckets, spades, furniture, and other toys are available. Mrs. Stephens actively manages only the library in the school where she teaches, but does the repair work for the others. Her mother helps her make the doll clothing. She was born in Oklahoma City and obtained her degree at Denver University.
Last year, she was asked to attend a meeting of the National Association of College Women and explain her doll-lending project. Since that time, a number of other cities are trying out the plan. Mrs. Stephens teaches kindergarten classes and music. Her husband is head stockman for a furniture and rug company. She is shown above with 3 of her pupils (left to right), Joyce Jenkins 7, Mary Bell, 7, and Janice Thomas, 6."
In colonial America, children's toys were often fashioned from utilitarian objects and materials on hand such as corn husks, clothes-pins and rags, using ingenuity and imagination. The use of apples as doll heads was a Native American practice and may have originated among the Iroquois or Seneca people.
As colonists came into contact with Native peoples, they copied their dolls; Native peoples also began to make brightly and elaborately costumed apple-head dolls to sell to tourists. Skookum dolls in Native dress, which were popular novelties between 1913 and the early 1960s, were originally made with apple heads; however their creator, Mary Dwyer McAboy, was not Native.
How to Craft Dried Apple Dolls
For an interesting and inexpensive hobby you need only apples, a little lacquer or shellac, some wire and a few scraps of material.
First step in making doll's head is proper selection of apple. Yellow delicious apples are best because of their size, and they will not be as dark as red apples after drying.
Peel apple, leaving stem attached, and carve rough facial features with an ordinary kitchen knife or small spoon. Peel another apple and cut into quarters. Cut one apple quarter into thirds, to be used for hands.
Dry apples by placing whole carved apple and pieces for hands in a tinfoil covered pan to prevent discoloration in drying process. Place in oven with Pilot Light Only lighted (or very low electric oven), and allow to dry for approximately five days. Hands may dry in two or three days, since they are thinner, and should be checked each day. After oven drying, allow apples to dry two or three more days in open air.
Finish features now, by painting cheeks, lips and eyebrows with water colors. Cut hands from smaller pieces with a pair of scissors, and dip tow or three times in shellac or lacquer. by Skip Cypert 1970 (open source)
The names of the Chinese Beauties are read opposite of English, in order right to left.
These miniature clay dolls are based upon the 12 female characters from classic Chinese literature found in the novel, “Dream of the Red Chamber.”
The story contains an extraordinarily large number of characters: nearly 40 major archetypes, and over 400 additional ones.The novel is known for complex portraits of its female characters. According to Lu Xun in the appendix to A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Dream of the Red Chamber broke every conceivable thought and technique in traditional Chinese fiction; its realistic characterization presents thoroughly human characters who are neither "wholly good nor wholly bad", but who seem to inhabit part of the real world.
See detailed painting on several of the clay dolls up-close.
Do to their popularity in Chinese literary culture, the 12 beauties often make appearances in opera performances, television and movies. Their names are
Lin Daiyu - The tragic poet, who refuses to conform to social expectations. She is a misunderstood character that always chooses emotional purity over wealth and status.
Xue Baochai - The idealistic matriarch who plays by the rules. She is considered the perfect wife.
Wan Xifeng - The ruthless manager who 'rules the roost.' She is often portrayed as cruel and iron-fisted.
Jia Tanchun - a ambitious reformer who pioneers for women's rights.
Shi Xiangyun - a free-spirited tomboy. She is often portrayed in modern film as everyone's best friend and the comic relief.
Miaoyu who is a zealous Buddhist detaches herself from 'worldly' society in order to maintain her spiritual purity.
Jia Yingchun is submissive and weak minded. She avoids confrontation and eventually is destroyed inside of an abusive marriage.
Jia Xichun after observing the moral decline of family members decides to become a nun.
Jia Yuanchun is successful in the Imperial Consort but is held captive there is a 'bird in a gold cage.' She becomes isolated from the family she has worked so hard to have the approval of.
Li Wan is a proper single parent who invests every moment in raising her son.
Jia Oiaojie is the darling of her wealthy family. Once that family looses all prominence and importance she is rescued from poverty and certain death by a humble country woman.
Qin Keqing gifted with unearthly beauty is doomed by romantic entanglements and ultimately destruction follows wherever she goes.
Our dollhouse pantry is filled with realistic looking canisters of grains, baking ingredients and some glitters that look like sugar. Children may search their kitchen cupboards at home for similar additions to their own dollhouse pantry or larder.
You will however, need to acquire some very tiny acrylic (plastic) containers in order to make some realistic accessories like the ones you see here. They are common place in the United States.
Also take the time to select a decorative paper for the lids of these canisters. Choose something that will compliment the decor of your doll's house kitchen. We selected a classic pink and white check pattern to go with our 18" doll's kitchen color scheme.
Our AGD doll canisters full of baking supplies.
Supply List:
clear acrylic containers approximately 1" or smaller
natural colored glitters: black, white and brown
tacky white craft glue
masking tape
decorative sheet of paper (small amount)
real backing ingredients too!
Mod Podge
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Make sure the tiny acrylic containers have lids and are clean. Choose clear ones so that you and your doll may 'see' what is inside of the container. Containers like these may be purchase for pocket change at a Dollar Store of some kind. The lids do not need to be transparent as these will be eventually covered with paper anyway.
Fill each container roughly 3/4 the way with glitters or real baking ingredients.
Along the inside edge of each container's lid squeeze out the tacky glue. When you replace the lid back onto the container, this will seal the baking powders and/or glitter inside of the canister so that the toy may be played with without mess and contamination.
Use masking tape to cover this lid after the glue has had time to dry shut over night. Masking the plastic surfaces of the lid will help the layering of paper on top to stick.
Cut and paste decorative papers onto each lid to cover both the tops and lips of each cap.
Seal the surfaces of the paper with Mod Podge to make the crafted canisters more durable for play.
I used 6 fillers for our dollhouse kitchen pantry canisters:
Color and cut-out these paper pumpkins for sale. Bend back on the dotted lines to make each spooky jack-o-lantern stand up on it's own. There are also fall leaves to color red, yellow or orange and little cats you may color black or orange too! Every paper doll will love to shop for their Halloween pumpkin at your doll's festive veggie stand...
