In Williamsburg, all kinds of people sacrificed, endured, and achieved. Learn more about the day-to-day lives of ordinary people and how they navigated life in the revolutionary city.
Williamsburg was a community of aspiration and contradiction. Through the controversies of the colonial era, it became a crucible of revolution.
From daily routines and whispered conversations, to last-minute errands and laughter emanating from homes and taverns, Williamsburg was a community of everyday people living their everyday lives.
Fireworks shows could be elaborate events. Some featured a central structure with painted illuminations, which might convey political meaning. The show might include pyrotechnics on a stage as well as fireworks launched into the air. Some were simple, others elaborate. Most fireworks did not have color additives and exploded in a golden orange.
The Pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower searching for religious freedom. The Native people they encountered welcomed them and helped them survive. To celebrate their friendship, they sat down together to a Thanksgiving feast. Explore the traditional tale of the First Thanksgiving.
Christmas stirs warm nostalgia on cold nights. Envisioning a simple, sentimental past, Americans have developed many misconceptions about the holiday’s beginnings in North America. Explore a dozen of the most common myths.
When you picture an “elegant” celebration in eighteenth-century Williamsburg, you might imagine fine clothing, hearty food and drink, and entertainment of music and dancing. But what about cannons?
Through clothing we can learn more about life in the 18th century. Learn more about colonial fashions and the tradespeople behind them
Tattooing is an ancient practice, which goes back as far as eight thousand years. Prior to the eighteenth-century, the English were familiar with tattoos through cross-cultural connections, but did not have a word for them. Instead, they used a variety of descriptive words like pouncing, pricking, pinking, rasing, cutting, and engraving.
Getting new clothing in the 18th century was much more of a participatory process than it is today.
Discover craftsmanship in more than 20 trades, where modern-day practitioners use 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in — and eventually master — blacksmithing, woodworking, or gunsmithing, just to name a few. These world-renowned experts not only make goods and provide services to our Historic Area, they also consult and produce for other cultural institutions around the world.
Learn how we make recipes in our colonial kitchens using the 18th-century description, then use our 21st-century translation to try the recipe at home!
In taverns, people both created communities and built barriers to protect those communities from the dangers of the unknown. Going to a tavern in eighteenth-century America meant navigating this contradiction.
While the life of Phillis Wheatley, a child prodigy and renowned poet, is well-documented, the stories of America’s many other Black children, free or enslaved, are less known. What Black children experienced can help us understand the trajectory of both the burgeoning colonies-turned-nation and the institution of slavery itself.
Bray School students received a much narrower formal education. Ann Wager, the school’s only teacher, taught reading, religion, and (to the girls) needlework.
From inspiring leaders to unsung heroes, change makers at Colonial Williamsburg fuel learning and discovery every day. Uncover your next reads as you learn more about the books that have fueled their passions and shaped their perspectives.
Being a citizen of the United States in the twenty-first century means reckoning with the decisions made in the late eighteenth century. Learn more below about the origins of American self-government.
Learn more about types of sources and how experts at Colonial Williamsburg use them to portray history accurately.
History unfolds one day at a time. And every moment from our past tells a story. Dig into these stories to learn more.
