The distinctive two-story main entrance of the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown will provide a focal point for arriving visitors.

Along with a physical transformation of the Yorktown Victory Center will come a new name – “American Revolution Museum at Yorktown” – adopted May 10 by the Board of Trustees of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the Virginia state agency that operates Yorktown Victory Center and Jamestown Settlement, and endorsed by the Board of Directors of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc.  Recommended by a board naming study task force, the new name will be implemented upon completion of the museum replacement, and in the meantime the Yorktown Victory Center will continue in operation as a museum of the American Revolution.

Construction is expected to start in the second half of 2012 on the project, which includes an 80,000-square-foot structure encompassing expanded exhibition galleries, classrooms and support functions; enhancement of the outdoor Continental Army encampment and Revolutionary-period farm interpretive areas; and reorganization of the 22-acre site.  Visit http://www.historyisfun.org/new-yorktown-museum.htm to learn more.

This life-size cast plaster statue of George Washington once stood in the Hall of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol.  It is an exact replica of the marble statue by Jean-Antoine Houdon that resides in the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, a building designed by Thomas Jefferson.  Crafted by the artist William James Hubard, the plaster statue has had a long and tumultuous life.

In 1786, three years after Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to return to private life, the Virginia General Assembly resolved to honor him with a “monument of affection and gratitude” by commissioning a statue of the “finest marble and best workmanship” to be exhibited in the Capitol Rotunda.  American ambassador to Paris, Thomas Jefferson, recommended Houdon, a French neoclassical sculptor, and Houdon insisted upon traveling to Virginia to study George Washington for the statue.

At Mount Vernon, Houdon executed wet clay life models and a plaster life mask.  These served as models for the statue, created between 1786 and 1795.  Houdon portrayed Washington as a modern Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who left his land to fight for his country and, after victory as a general, returned to his farm as a man of simplicity and peace.  He wears his military uniform but carries a civilian walking stick.  This statue was considered by contemporaries to be the best living likeness of George Washington.

In 1853 the Virginia General Assembly approved a request from sculptor William James Hubard to make castings of Houdon’s statue.  Hubard was a British-born artist who began his career as a silhouette portrait cutter and later worked in Boston and New York as a portrait painter.  By mid-century he was operating a foundry in Richmond, Virginia.  Hubard took castings directly from Houdon’s masterpiece and then made a mold from these castings.  Holding the exclusive right to make copies over a term of seven years, the artist created bronze and plaster statues from this mold.  The end result was a faithful copy of Houdon’s work and a remarkable life portrait of Washington in uniform.

Six of Hubard’s bronze copies are known today, but this may be the only surviving plaster rendition.  This plaster copy was manufactured in Hubard’s Richmond studio between 1856 and1860.  The U.S. government ordered a copy in 1860, but the Civil War broke out before it could be delivered.  The statue remained in Hubard’s possession, even after the artist converted his studio from statue casting to ammunition manufacturing.   In 1862 Hubard died in an accident while serving in the war, but his widow finally sold the statue for $2,000 to the U.S. government in 1870.

Hubard’s statue stood in the Hall of Representatives for 80 years, gradually suffering the ravages of time, including losses to its base and sword hilt.  In 1950 the Architect of the U.S. Capitol transferred it to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was stored for more than a half century.  In 2007 it was rescued by the intervention of the Library of Virginia and was later given to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which has had the piece conserved and will prominently display it in the new museum replacing the Yorktown Victory Center.

Home page of The Yorktown Chronicles

American colonists, unhappy with the way Britain was trying to tax and control them following the French and Indian War, at first attempted reconciliation with the mother country but eventually turned to armed conflict and a declaration of their independence.  The British, on the other hand, thought it only fair that the colonists pay for the protection of their homeland and were surprised by such a negative reaction from the Americans.

As conflict between the American colonies and Great Britain intensified in the 1770s, two men stepped forward to defend their principles and countrymen.  One man stayed fiercely loyal to his king, and the other was devoted to the cause of freedom.  The stories of these two men, George Washington and Charles Cornwallis, are featured in The Yorktown Chronicles, a new Web section of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation site, www.historyisfun.org. In character portrayals, Washington and Cornwallis share the American and British perspective on key American Revolution topics in eight dynamic films.  The Yorktown Chronicles engage those interested in learning more about the Revolution through timelines, biographies, essays and a glossary of terms. 

Enjoy exploring this exciting new resource for American Revolution enthusiasts, students and educators.  Please share your impressions of The Yorktown Chronicles.

American colonists were eager to acquire “luxury” goods, exemplified by a pair of candlesticks in the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection. These were made by British craftsmen in the 18th century of paktong, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc that resembles silver.

How did shopping and the desire to acquire new consumer goods give rise to the American Revolution?

During the 18th century more ordinary men and women in colonial America were acquiring luxury goods than ever before. From tea and tea sets to silk waistcoats, card tables, and sets of carved chairs, people pursued portable and fashionable goods to communicate their rising standard of living, style and respectability.

Fashion reigns here with despotic sway. New modes are imported full as soon as they are conveyed in Counties at a distance from London – Thomas Gwatkin, circa 1773

Travelers and military officers after the French and Indian War returned to England with stories of America’s prosperity and their conspicuous consumption of British manufactured goods. Thus, parliament looked to the colonies to help pay imperial debts and passed the Stamp Act, Townshend Duties and Tea Act, taxing a variety of imported commodities. Colonists relied on British imports but took offense at such taxation. They responded with boycotts.

While groups of local merchants usually planned and implemented non-importation, the movement grew larger, more successful, and increasingly democratic. Communal sacrifices brought together shopkeepers and planters, artisans and farmers, northerners and southerners, and old money and new in a common cause as consumers and as victims of British taxation. The non-importation movements proved that colonial customers could exert economic pressures on Parliament to force change.

Revolutionary boycotts were novel. The consumer had never played such a key role in any previous popular rebellion. The widely shared democratic experience of “shopping” enabled people from all ranks of society to express with one voice their anger at Parliament and their resolve to oppose its unjust laws. Joining together in this revolutionary cause gave rise to a growing awareness of national identity among the colonies.

Patrick Henry, depicted in the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s 19th-century copy of a portrait by Gilbert Stuart, was governor of Virginia when Hampden-Sydney College was founded and a member of its first Board of Trustees.

Hampden-Sydney College, founded on January 1, 1776, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, was named for two great English patriots, John Hampden (1595-1643) and Algernon Sydney (1622-1683).  Patrick Henry and James Madison, two great Virginia patriots, were members of Hampden-Sydney’s first Board of Trustees.

The college’s founders, faculty and students were all of a patriotic bent, and in the school’s first year students and faculty alike were actively involved in the war effort.  In the spring of 1776 Governor Patrick Henry sent a requisition to Prince Edward County for a company of militia. That requisition was followed shortly by word that a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain had been issued by a group meeting in Philadelphia.

Upon hearing that a Declaration of Independence had been issued, Samuel Stanhope Smith, the first president of Hampden-Sydney, many faculty members and 65 students formed a company of their own and joined the cause. The Company’s uniforms were simple modifications of regular dress: gray trousers and hunting shirts that were dyed garnet – a color achieved by using the juice from pokeberries.

While there were some Hampden-Sydney men who fought at Yorktown in 1781, none were members of the company formed in 1776.  The Company apparently did march out, offering themselves as soldiers to General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, but Lafayette is said to have replied that they should return to their college, as America needed scholars as well as soldiers.

Garnet and gray are still the official colors of Hampden-Sydney College.

A large wooden doll recently added to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection was made by an unknown English toymaker around the time of the American Revolution.

It might surprise children today that such a curious-looking doll would have been a desired plaything in the late 18th century but such would have been the case.  American portraits of children by such famed painters as Charles Willson Peale, who captured the likenesses of George Washington and other great men of the founding generation, also preserved for posterity a number of portraits of English wooden dolls in the arms of prominent new Americans in the 1780s.

Christened “Miss Chalkley” by her last private owners, this rare doll was found at Chalkley Farm in southern England, along with two others.  Dating to circa 1770, our 26-inch-tall doll is well-preserved, indicating that she was carefully kept by her 18th-century child owner and passed down from generation to generation until the late 20th century.  Most likely made by a London toymaker, her carefully carved nose, chin and ears, inset almond-shaped pupiless eyes – a costly addition when they could have been more readily and cheaply painted – and carved pursed lips.  All her features, including her painted eyebrows, point to the recognized standards of female beauty in the 18th century.

The doll has human hair hand-sewn into a silk skull cap, which is tacked to her skull and covered with a white cloth cap usually hidden under her striped-silk over-bonnet.  Her turned and hand-finished wooden body is jointed at the knees, hips and elbows, and her upper arms are of hair-stuffed linen cloth – all features attesting to her gentry status.

Miss Chalkley's gown from the back, showing leading strings trailing from the shoulders.

Rarest of all, the doll’s silk gown was sewn from 18th century materials, and her linen chemise, petticoats and bum roll are original.  Trailing from her shoulders are two long “tails” of matching silk — “leading strings” indicating that this doll is dressed to represent a young child rather than a grown woman as might at first be expected.  In the 18th century, adult and children’s clothing styles were very similar, and leading strings served the practical purpose of guiding a toddler in her first steps.  Hidden under her skirts are hand-stitched, sturdy, leather boots with applied soles that are not only original to her but a work of the cobbler’s art on their very own.  From her linen chemise to her cap, the clothing is constructed and functions like that of her human counterpart, leading us to wonder if the doll not only served as a teaching tool in the construction of garments by young fingers but on the often-complicated art of dressing and disrobing at the time of the American Revolution.

Though the American colonies broke with Great Britain, the trade links between consumers and suppliers were quickly re-established following the decisive American victory at Yorktown.  Luxury goods such as English wooden dolls continued to cross the Atlantic, as can be seen in many portraits of the 1780s.

Miss Chalkley's boots, hand-stitched leather with applied soles.

Peggy Sanderson Hughes and her Daughter by Charles Willson Peale, oil on canvas, ca.1788. Courtesy, Detroit Institute of Arts, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund/ Bridgeman Art

A German Lutheran Serves the Virginia Cause

A 1764 painted wooden chest on exhibit at the Yorktown Victory Center is representative of the culture of German immigrants to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

“To find a person . . . in the Clergy of the Church of England, who is capable of Preaching both in the English and German Languages.”  The vestrymen of Beckford Parish in Woodstock, Virginia, established these guidelines in 1771.  These peaceful, German-speaking farmers who had moved south from Pennsylvania into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley sought a minister who could speak their language and help them in dealing with Virginia’s state church, the Church of England.  When Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the distinguished Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania, heard Virginia’s call, he prepared his son, John Peter, to fill the slot.

Born in Pennsylvania, Peter began studies in Germany but eventually joined a British regiment going to America.  Back in Pennsylvania, he left the regiment, studied and was ordained in the Lutheran church.  When Virginia called, he sought ordination in the Anglican Church in order to assist the Virginia Germans in accommodating to the state church requirements.  Muhlenberg led Anglican services in both English and German and informed his German parishioners of revolutionary events stirring in the eastern part of the colony. 

Boston King, profiled in the Yorktown Victory Center’s Witnesses to Revolution Gallery, was apprenticed to a carpenter in South Carolina and escaped enslavement in 1780, joining the British side, where he worked for a time as a boat pilot.

Welcome to All About the Revolution. Our topics range from historical insights to updates on plans for the next generation of the Yorktown Victory Center. We encourage your thoughts and reactions to each post.

What Kinds of Jobs Did Enslaved African Americans Do?

In the 18th century, most enslaved African Americans worked as agricultural laborers, but not all did.  Below is a list of 78 different occupations mentioned in The Virginia Gazette, a late-colonial-era newspaper.  How many of these jobs were sometimes performed by slaves in Virginia?

 (Answer:  All of them.)

Bakers; Barbers; Basket Makers; Blacksmiths; Brewers; Bricklayers; Brick Makers; Butchers; Cabinet Makers; Canoe Men; Carpenters; Carters; Cartwrights; Caulkers; Coachmen; Colliers; Cooks; Coopers; Curriers; Dairy Maids; Dancers; Ditchers; Drivers; Doctors; Dressmakers; Farmers; Ferrymen; Fiddle Makers; Fiddlers; Finers; Firemen; Fish Dealers; Fishermen; Foremen; Forge Men; Founders; Furnace Men; Furnace Keepers; Gardeners; Glaziers; Gunsmiths; Hairdressers; Hammermen; Harness Makers; Hostlers; House Joiners; Knitters; Millers; Mill Wrights; Miners; Musicians; Nurses; Overseers; Pilots; Plasterers; Preachers; Rope Makers; Saddlers; Sailmakers; Sailors; Sawyers; Seamstresses; Ship Carpenters; Ship Builders; Shoe Makers; Smiths; Skippers; Spinners; Stone Masons; Tailors; Tanners; Turners; Wagon Makers; Wagoners; Waiters; Watermen; Weavers; and Wheelwrights.

A map printed in France in 1778 depicts the British American colonies of the Upper and Lower South. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection.

These words by Jean de Crevecoeur described the peoples of the thirteen colonies at the time of the American Revolution.  The population of more than two million represented several dozen regional and religious cultures derived from northwestern Europe and Africa.  One quarter of these people were non-English Europeans, and another one quarter were Africans and African Americans.

While the New England Colonies were generally homogenous, mostly English Anglicans, Puritans, Baptists or Quakers, the Middle Colonies supported a wider variety of cultural groups because of a greater degree of religious and social tolerance.  These colonies contributed one quarter of the total population and contained Philadelphia, America’s largest city.

 America’s largest population lived in the Upper South – Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina.  One-fifth of the population lived in Virginia alone, and almost half of all enslaved Africans and African-Americans lived on Virginia’s tobacco plantations.  By contrast, the Lower South contained less than 10 percent of the total population.

 Curiously, while New England played a major role in the revolutionary movement, it contained fewer people than in the mid-Atlantic.  It was this mid-Atlantic region – the contiguous colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina – that supported more than half of America’s total population and more than 70 percent of its Africans and African-Americans.

This British halfpenny token in the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection bears the image of a man on the gallows with the slogan “End of Pain,” a reference to the banished political theorist and British radical Thomas Paine.

The fire crackled in the tavern fireplace near where the tradesman sat drinking his mug of rum and reading aloud to others in his company from the little weathered pamphlet.

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge.

Such scenes were likely repeated across the colonies during the winter of 1776.  The previous April, war between the American colonies and Great Britain had begun.  The British were now under siege in Boston by George Washington’s army. But what did Americans hope to achieve by this war? 

A little pamphlet, unassumingly entitled Common Sense would answer that question.  Written by Thomas Paine, Common Sense outlined the case for independence.  The most radical and important pamphlet written in the American Revolution, Paine spoke directly to the common man.  At a time when many revolutionary leaders wrote for their small circle of enlightened colleagues using obscure classical and historical references, Thomas Paine reached out to ordinary working folk with plain language and an unprecedented common style.  This brought all ranks of society into the political debate for the first time.  Even those who were illiterate could hear Common Sense read aloud in public gathering places.  Published anonymously in Philadelphia in January 1776, it was soon available in all 13 colonies and sold over 150,000 copies.  Its impact was electrifying, jolting reluctant colonists off the fence to fight for independence.

Which of these arguments might have persuaded YOU to choose independence and why?

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

 We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account…

And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing…

 The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if the work be but accomplished.  No nation ought to be without a debt.  A national debt is a national bond …

The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz., the time of forming itself into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves.