Bodleian Plate, maker unknown, England, ca. 1740.
Accession #1938-196.

CONTENTS

The Next
Electronic Field Trip is

Yorktown
October 19, 2006

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This month's primary source—an engraved copperplate discovered in 1929—is the only known eighteenth-century architectural drawing of colonial Williamsburg’s principal buildings. Featuring images of the College of William & Mary, the old Capitol building, and the Governor's Palace, the designs on this plate became an essential reference for John D. Rockefeller's plans of restoration and reconstruction in the town of Williamsburg.

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Colonial Williamsburg offers a variety of quality instructional materials dealing with 18th-century life, including:

- Before and After (book)
- Jefferson & Adams: A Stage Play (DVD)
- Declaration of Independence Poster

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Teaching News

Colonial Williamsburg Productions Wins Emmy Award!
Last month, at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington D.C., Colonial Williamsburg Productions was awarded an Emmy in the"Interactive" category for the Electronic Field Trip production "No Master Over Me." The event was sponsored by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Press Release (.PDF)
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NEW! Declaration of Independence Poster
In 1820, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned an engraver to create an official facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-one known copies have survived. Pat and Jerry Epstein of Los Angeles, California, recently donated a Stone Declaration to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. This poster is a high-quality reproduction of the Stone Declaration, and includes historical background information and lesson plans.

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Quotation of the Month

“Williamsburg . . . is regularly laid out in parallel streets, intersected by others at right angles; has a handsome square in the center, through which runs the principal street, one of the most spacious in North America, three quarters of a mile in length, and above a hundred feet wide. At the opposite ends of this street are two public buildings, the college and the capitol: and although the houses are of wood, covered with shingles, and but indifferently built, the whole makes a handsome appearance.&rdquo

—The Reverend Andrew Burnaby
Travels through the Middle Settlements in
North-America, in the years 1759 and 1760
(Printed for T. Payne, London, 1775)