Source of the Month
Top: A pre-1930s photograph of the Tayloe House. Bottom: The Tayloe House and Office after restoration. From the collections of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
"The Restoration of James Madison’s Montpelier"
Source of the Month
Colonial Williamsburg Teaching Resources
Quotation of the Month
Electronic Field Trip is
March 6, 2008
20072008 Electronic Field
activities, and resources about life
in colonial America
Restoration of James Madison’s Montpelier,"
by Edward A. Chappell
The architectural restoration of Montpelier, the rural Virginia Piedmont home of James and Dolley Madison, is among the most complex and fascinating of our generation. It raises issues about preservation and presentation of historic buildings, sets a standard for the capture and synthesis of data, and offers a new glimpse of the Madisons' private lives.
Source of the Month:
Photographs of the Tayloe House
of the restored and reconstructed buildings
in Colonial Williamsburg's 301-acre Historic
Area was researched extensively. Archaeological
excavations uncovered foundations and
disclosed a number of other features.
Early maps, plats, and deeds helped to
establish boundaries and locations. Fortunately,
early photographs of many of the buildings
also existed to document exterior appearances
and supplement the archaeological and
People use buildings for a wide range of activities related to family life, work, shopping, religion, recreation, entertainment, and so on. Over time, some structures may be neglected and fall into disrepair, while others are torn down to make way for new construction. Buildings may also be preserved or restored for continued use—often for a completely different purpose. This lesson enables a teacher to help students begin viewing buildings as primary sources which, just like documents, can yield information about how people in the past lived and what they valued.
Williamsburg Teaching Resources for Your
Williamsburg offers a variety of quality
instructional materials dealing with 18th-century
- Williamsburg Before and After (book)
- A Link Among the Days (video)
- Forged in Wood: Building Anderson’s Blacksmith Shop (video)
- Colonial Houses (book)
John Adams Miniseries Premieres
March 16–April 27, 2008
John Adams stars Paul Giamatti
and Laura Linney as John and Abigail Adams,
and will focus on the first 50 years of
a post-revolutionary nation. Based on
David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning
biography, John Adams, the series
is executive produced by Tom Hanks and
Gary Goetzman and directed by Emmy-winner
Scenes for HBO's six-episode miniseries
John Adams were filmed February
through May 2007 in Colonial Williamsburg's
Historic Area. One of four shooting locations,
the Historic Area offered a setting painstakingly
faithful to the eighteenth century.
View HBO's John Adams trailer.
of the Month
cultural heritage and the natural heritage
are among the priceless and irreplaceable
possessions, not only of each nation, but
of mankind as a whole. The loss, through
deterioration or disappearance, of any of
these most prized possessions constitutes
an impoverishment of the heritage of all
the peoples in the world."
Operational Guidelines for the Implementation
of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO, 1997