October 30-November 1

Oxen in the Old and New World

Relied upon for strength and intelligence, as well as serving as a food source, oxen have been invaluable to mankind through the centuries. Oxen remained the main beasts of burden until late in the 19th century when horses and mules replaced them. At The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, rare-breed oxen have served as part of historical interpretation for many years.

Join us this October for a three-day symposium on oxen and learn how they have been used over time, in the old and new worlds, and explore the practical aspects of their use today. The program will include lectures, demonstrations, and panel discussions featuring oxen experts from around the world.

Guest presenters include:

• Donald Collins, D.V.M., Berwick, Maine
• Drew Conroy, author, ox trainer, and mentor to many, Berwick, Maine *Recent Addition*
• Rob Flory, intern program coordinator, Howell Living History Farm, Mercer County Park Commission, Trenton, New Jersey
• Barry Hiltz, Ross Farm, New Ross, Nova Scotia
  
• Tim Huppe, custom ox yoke maker, Farmington, New Hampshire
  
• Bob Powell, curator, Highland Folk Museum, Newtonmore, Scotland
  
• Richard Roosenberg, executive director, Tillers International, Scotts, Michigan
  
• Ed Schultz, supervisor of rural trades, Colonial Williamsburg
  
• Paul Starkey, international specialist in animal power and rural transport, Reading, England
  
• Darin Tschopp, ox driver and interpreter, Colonial Williamsburg
  
• Peter Watson, director, Howell Living History Farm, Mercer County Park Commission, Trenton, New Jersey

Colonial Williamsburg acknowledges the generosity of Ronald R. and Janet S. Fox of Piqua, Ohio, Josephine Blue of Menlo Park, Calif., and Joan V. Ingraham of Prides Crossing, Mass., in support of the Oxen Conference.

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Register online

October 31-November 2

The Many Layered Meanings of Costume

The Southeastern Region of the Costume Society of America
announces its 2008 Annual Symposium

Hosted by: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, The College of William and Mary, and The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

Symposium Highlights Include:

• Juried paper presentations and research exhibits
• Behind-the-scenes tours of host facilities
• New Preserving Our Past workshops
• New quilted clothing and object exhibition at CWF
• All Hallows’ Eve Costume Dinner and Catwalk

Call for Abstracts: The symposium title is designed to be broadly themed and attract research papers and exhibits from all areas of costume studies. Preference will be given to those abstracts which present research into the cultural significance of costume, explore the meaning of the word costume, study layered and/or quilted objects of adornment, update formerly presented research, offer important new conclusions, or raise stimulating new questions. Research papers will be given in 20-30 minute presentations; research exhibitions will be presented in a single venue for approximately 2 hours.

A submitted abstract must designate whether it is for a research paper or exhibition, is to be 575 words or less excluding bibliography, and may include up to 3 pertinent images. Abstracts for research exhibits should, in addition to discussing the research, briefly describe the exhibit format, i.e.: traditional poster, 3-dimensional objects, lap-top presentation. All abstracts are to be submitted electronically; the author’s name and contact information are to appear only in the e-mail cover letter, the abstract text is to be a Microsoft Word document attachment. All abstract are due by midnight June 15 to fburroughs@cwf.org . Submitters will be notified of the jury’s decision before July 31.

For further information contact Doris Warren (dwarren@cwf.org) or Mark Hutter (mhutter@cwf.org), or call 757-229-1000 ext.2538.

Download conference schedule of events (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Download conference registration form for mailing (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Register online

Metalworking for Revolution:
Equipping the American Army

Join us for our second conference for metalworkers and others who want to broaden their understanding of 18th-century metalworking and its products. “Metalworking for Revolution” is a three-day program exploring the role of blacksmiths, founders, silversmiths, gunsmiths, tinsmiths, and toolmakers in supplying the equipment needed to fight the American Revolution.  It will focus on materials, technologies, and skills.

Prior to the Revolution, Americans relied on English manufacturers to supply military arms and materials for defense of the colonies.  With the onset of war, they turned to their own artisans.  American metalworkers found themselves filling the demand for buttons, buckles, gorgets, and cooking utensils as well as swords, tomahawks, muskets, bayonets, and entrenching tools.  Much of this work took place in small shops, but large manufactories were established to cast artillery barrels and mass produce small arms.  Technologies included forging, welding, heat-treating, casting, sheet-metal work, soldering, filing, boring, punching, die-sinking, and engraving.

Members of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Trades department and guest speakers will discuss the development of these industries and demonstrate many of these processes.  They will make reproductions of original objects using eighteenth-century tools and methods.  Morning presentations will take place in the Hennage Auditorium at the DeWitt Wallace Museum, where close-up video will show the action in detail.  During the afternoons Historic Trades shops will present demonstrations in the Historic Area.

Patterned after our annual woodworking conferences, “Metalworking for Revolution” will be informal.  Participants’ comments and questions are welcomed throughout, and speakers will be available during morning breaks and afternoon demonstrations.   We expect the program will be popular, and space requires that registration be limited.

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January 7-10
January 11-14

Working Wood in the 18th Century: Bedroom Furniture

Colonial Williamsburg and Fine Woodworking present the eleventh annual Working Wood in the 18th Century conference at Williamsburg during the week of January 7-14, 2009.  The topic is bedroom furniture.  Mack Headley and the staff of the Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades Cabinetmaking Shop will present the design and construction of two mid-eighteenth-century bedsteads, one a high-post, the other a low-post.  They also will make a mahogany child’s cradle.  While the focus will be on the woodwork, beds are incomplete without their hangings and other textiles, many of which were cleverly engineered, and curators and conservators will show how to “dress” the products of our woodworking shops. 

In addition to beds, Historic Trades cabinetmakers will demonstrate the production of several looking glasses/mirrors, including techniques such as joinery and gilding that are applicable to picture-frame making as well.   Finally, we will be joined by noted educator and craftsman Steve Latta, who will present the construction and decoration of a Portsmouth, New Hampshire,-style lady’s dressing table, taking the symposia for the first time into the exploration of a formal, high-style Federal case piece.  

As always, these demonstrations will concentrate on period methods of workmanship, and close-up video monitoring will show the processes in detail.

Speakers Include:

• Tara Gleason Chicirda, curator of furniture, Colonial Williamsburg
• Beth Gerhold, textile refurnisher, Colonial Williamsburg
• Mack Headley, master cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg
• Kim Ivey, associate curator of textiles and needlework, Colonial Williamsburg
• Steve Latta, educator and craftsman, Thaddeus Stevens College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• Kaare Loftheim, journeyman cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg
• Bill Pavlak, apprentice cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg
• David Salisbury, journeyman cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg
• Chris Swan, furniture conservator, Colonial Williamsburg
• Brian Weldy, apprentice cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg

The conference is informal. Participants’ comments and questions are welcomed.  During morning and afternoon breaks, speakers display their work, tools, and materials; demonstrate techniques; and chat with participants.  To include more participants while keeping the conferences small enough for everyone to be involved, two virtually identical programs are offered (with some changes in the sequence of presentations).  Please note that the first session begins Wednesday evening, January 7, and closes Saturday afternoon, January 10.  The second program begins Sunday evening, January 11, and closes Wednesday afternoon, January 14.

February 1-5

The 61st Annual Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum
The Origins of American Style

American decorative arts, inspired by British and other European antecedents, evolved steadily over the course of the nation’s first three centuries. Fresh expressions of style emerged with every passing decade and new forms were introduced regularly, especially in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At the 61st annual Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, The Origins of American Style, you are invited to explore this rich and varied heritage.

The 2009 Forum will bring together a host of widely recognized speakers to investigate the remarkable furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles, paintings, and buildings produced in early America. More than twenty curators, collectors, and historians (including three from Great Britain) will present their latest findings in a series of illustrated lectures and video-assisted workshops. Scheduled speakers include English decorative arts scholar Lisa White, Winterthur’s Brock Jobe, and American furniture specialist Erik Gronning of Sotheby’s.

In addition to the formal program, Forum guests may register for optional hands-on workshops with the Colonial Williamsburg collections and private tours of historic homes in the region. Please plan to join us February 1-5, 2009, for The Origins of American Style.

February 22 - 25

"Quilted Fashions"
400 Years of Quilting

The process of quilting textiles to enhance their warmth, comfort, and luxury has been around for thousands of years. And quilts still speak to people today, whether it is the concept of creating beauty from small bits and pieces, giving one’s self through a special handmade gift, or connecting with a past ancestor through his or her surviving quilt. To some, quilts evoke family, friends, warmth, and tradition. To others, quilts are striking art objects hung on the wall.

This symposium brings together nationwide experts for two days of illustrated lectures on quilts and quilted clothing from 1600 to the present. Optional workshops and special behind-the-scenes tours give participants the opportunity to learn a new technique or see museum artifacts close up.

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Register online

March 22 – 26

37th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA)
“Making History Interactive”
CAA 2009 Williamsburg

The 37th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, “Making History Interactive,” will be held in Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A., March 22–26, 2009. The conference theme will explore how digital technologies make it possible to access and investigate our cultural heritage in new ways and how we as scholars can use these innovative approaches to engage the public in the study of the past. The meeting will be held in the Williamsburg Lodge Conference Center, adjacent to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, and is being sponsored by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the University of Virginia.

For further information, please visit the conference website: http://www.caa2009.org

May 1
*Note Date Change*

63rd Colonial Williamsburg Garden Symposium

September 20-22

“A very large curious & compleat Assortment”
Textiles for Interiors, 1730–1830

An understanding of the design, construction, and materials of textile furnishings is of primary importance to scholars and designers who focus on the recreation of traditional and historic interiors. For more than 25 years, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has taken the lead in reinterpreting the use of textiles in historic interiors from the eighteenth century.

This symposium gathers the leading American and English scholars in the field to review the design and composition of textile furnishings available between 1730 and 1830, including upholstery, bed and window treatments, and floor coverings. Complementing the lectures will be special tours in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area and optional workshops. Particular attention will be given to the accurate, yet practical, application of these design tenets for today’s interiors. Because it is becoming more and more difficult to find authentic reproduction textiles, hardware, passementerie, and qualified fabricators, Colonial Williamsburg will provide a venue for well-respected vendors and booksellers who are able to supply the essential resources for fabricating authentic textile décor.

March 18 – 21

Stoneware Conference