My Virginia

Trip

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Virginia’s Governor’s Palace was completed in 1772 and instantly became one of the most elegant and impressive buildings in Colonial America. The palace was a statement of power, with impressive gates , gardens and weaponry hung on the walls. Governors who lived in the palace included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Alexander Spotswood and others.

Governor’s Palace

Gardens and grounds were

designed to impress.

The back garden even contains a maze.

Weaponry Displayed in Entry

• Demonstrates wealth • Impressive to colonists • Actually used in battle

Coffee Shop

At the colonial coffee shop, the reenactments by the volunteers were very humorous and informative. The manager of the coffee shop talked a lot about the people who came there and who it served. My brothers were told to sit in the corner because he couldn’t waste a chair on them.

Children would not be served and would, to put it nicely, be quickly ushered from the building. Women never came to the coffee shop because it was just not dignified. The manager explained if they did, he most definitely serve them as long as they could pay. Money, after all, was all that mattered; any man who could pay for a cup of Joe would certainly be welcomed into the shop. However, the average person usually couldn’t afford to stay at the coffee shop and pay for the expensive non-necessity, so most of the people there tended to be quite well off.

Most of the businesses had signs that were pictures, like the coffee shop shown here, to show what their business was because many colonists couldn’t read.

Clothier

She was completely baffled that we would do this. She explained to us how people in her time ordered their clothes. A long fitting was the first step in the process, followed by picking the fabrics out, choosing exactly the style and color you wanted. Then there was obviously a long wait while the seamstress created your uniquely styled and colored dress.

The colonial clothier was a very different place than where we purchase our clothes today. The lady working at the colonial clothes shop was appalled to hear how we nowadays go to a large building, searching through endless racks of clothes, trying to find something we like and that fits.

Stays

Another interesting fact explained by the clothier was the idea of stays. Stays were a type of corset for children, hoping to give them good posture. Boys wore stays from the time they began walking, up to 8 years old when they changed from wearing dresses to pants. Girls continued to wear them. The clothier insisted that they were not uncomfortable.

Boarding House

One of the most interesting facts I learned at the boarding house was about fixed rates. No boarding house had the right to decide how much a room or floor space cost. The *government* decided every price set at boarding houses, from food to a place for your horse. Because of this, the house would have many men share one room (all paying the designated rate). Two men would sleep in a twin bed like the one above and as many as 16 men would sleep in a room with just two beds and a fireplace, many sleeping on the ground.

Apothecary

In colonial times the apothecary did much more than simply sell drugs.

An apothecary:

• Provided medications• Prescribed medicine• Trained apprentices• Performed surgery• Served as mid-wives

Revolutionary City

In the Revolutionary City, actors portrayed different characters and actedout different scenes from history. When we visited, we watched a conversation between slaves and saw a visit by Martha Washington. When Martha arrived, an angry townsperson came forward and complained to her about wounded soldiers not getting their due compensation. Martha listened and told him she would most definitely be checking into the situation.

Jamestown

Jamestown Settlement is a few miles from the original Jamestown. It is a living history re-creation of the original settlement.

The Godspeed, The Discovery, and The Susan Constant were the first three ships who voyaged their way to Virginia with English colonists riding along. The boats are recreations of the original three colonial ships.

The original ships sailed from London on December 20, 1606, headed for Virginia. The ships carried 105 passengers and 39 crew members. There were 71 people aboard the Susan Constant, 52 on the Godspeed, and 21 on the Discovery. All three ships were extremely hot and crowded. They not only had all the people aboard but animals, luggage and materials for building their new home in Virginia.

Indians living near Jamestown played a huge role in the lives of the colonists. It is true that, at first, the natives were not the friendliest of neighbors to the new settlers but after awhile they began to warm upto them. The Indians’ way of life helped the colonists immensely, to live better lives.

Native Americans had a very intricate way of making their houses with branches and twigs. The colonist never used this technique for building because they already had their own way of building strong log cabins. The Indians taught colonists to skin animals and to preserve an animal, putting everything to good use. Seashells were used to skin the fur off the hide of an animal such as a deer or elk. Another animal that was used quite regularly was fish. Fish were used for fertilizer and were one of the main reasons the natives could grow such good crops. The colonists from England were very lucky to have the Native Americans to help them survive in this new land.

Historic Jamestowne is the actual site of the first English settlement in America. It is now a National Park.

Unfortunately, the settlers chose to stop and build their settlement right next to a swamp. Swamps were not a very good thing to be living by. They brought bugs which brought diseases. There's no fresh water in a swamp, the land near swamps is extremely hard to grow crops in, and it was hard to move through when traveling and hunting. If the new settlers of what is now Virginia had only moved a mile farther inland, they would have found a much better place to build their home.

The Jamestown church is the only surviving seventeenth-century building in Jamestown. The church below is actually the second church built in Jamestown. The first was burned down, though the original foundation remains.

Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in the second church. This church was not one you would come to once a week like is common in our time. It had a congregation present at least twice a day, every day of the week. Men and women were separated to different sides during church and sat on straight-backed, wooden pews.

YORKTOWN

The Great Battlefield

Many battles were fought near the fort of Yorktown; and to fight those battles you needed soldiers and those soldiers needed a place to sleep, eat, and train. Hence came army camps. Army camps were not usually the nicest of places. The tents to the right, believe it or not, were shared by six full grown men! And when there weren’t enough tents, more men squeezed in, sometimes adding up to ten men stuffed inside one tiny tent. The cramped atmosphere wasn’t the only tough aspect of camp.

The food could be whatever was found that day and/or leftovers from weeks before. Meats, beans, and vegetables were sloshed into pots with some water and no spices for flavor.

Hardtack was served on a daily basis, if you could eat it. Hard tack was bread dried out to the point that it didn’t even crumble. It had virtually no taste and could take quite a while to swallow. Beans were served when they had them but were almost never fully cooked. “Can I have some more

please?”

In the army camps for the colonial soldiers, many camps practiced different ways of punishing wrong- doers. One of the most common punishments was wearing signs stating what crime or sinful thing you had done. They would say things like “THIEF”, “LIAR”, “CHEATER”, or, like the picture of my brother to the right, “DESERTER”.

Another popular form of punishment was ‘the horse’. A wooden horse whose back was about 5 feet from the ground was used as a cruel way of punishment. It had a back usually only and inch or two wide which made it very uncomfortable to straddle. To make it even worse, victims usually had weights tied to their legs to add to the pain.

A colonial farm house in Yorktown would be quite simple. There was usually a bottom and top floor. The top floor was usually dedicated as the dining room area, bedroom, and sewing and recreational area. The top floor was usually used as the sleeping area for the children and a storage area for wood, cloth, food, etc.

The dining table was usually handmade and very simple. Nicer dishes would be made from pewter and less nice made from wood. Forks had not been made so the family only ate with a spoon or knives.

The adult beds were a lot shorter than the ones we have today because people slept sitting up with their back against the wall. It was thought that sitting up helped air flow through your body, not trapping toxins in your lungs. The family toilet was placed downstairs usually by the parents’ bed. This “toilet” was really just a pot that was emptied every morning. The upstairs of the farmhouse didn’t contain much. The children usually didn’t have beds, but just slept on pallets stuffed with straw. The rest of the space was mostly used for storage.

In Yorktown we saw a rare broadside printing of America’s Declaration of Independence, dating to July 1776.

This document was printed after the Declaration was adopted but before the handwritten version was signed by members of Congress on August 2, 1776. 

The official printing, with the names of all of the signers, was authorized by Congress several months later, in January 1777.

White House Facts

•The white house has approximately 6000 visitors a day.• There are 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms and 6 levels.• In various times in history the White house has been known as the President’s Palace, President’s House, and the Executive Mansion.• The White House requires 570 gallons of paint to cover the outside surface.•The White House wasn’t always white; they painted it white after the British tried to burn it down.•Barack Obama was the first president to have a computer in the Oval Office.

We were surprised to learn that the White House was right in the middle of the city. Pictures always make it looks like it’s off by itself (and larger than it looks in person). This building, under construction, is directly to the right of the White House. It was actually much fancier than the White House. (The “patriotic” hat belongs to our tour guide who wore it so we wouldn’t lose track of him in the city.)

Concepción Picciotto has protested nuclear war by living in a  tent across the street from the White House since 1981. I thought our tour guide was joking when he said she’d been there for 30 years, but he wasn’t. Her husband used to camp with her, but he passed away. (Note: The lady outside the tent is not Concepcion. She is talking to Concepcion who is quite elderly.)

The Smithsonian Institution is a museum and research complex of 19 museums and galleries. There are more than 30 million visitors to the Smithsonian every year. The total number of objects , works of art, and specimens at the Smithsonian is estimated at 137 million. We had a VERY brief stop at the Museum of American History and the Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian

Lincoln Memorial

Located at the Western end of the National Mall in Washington

DC, The Lincoln Memorial commemorates the 16th

president of the Unites States, Abraham Lincoln. The writing behind the statue says; “IN

THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE

SAVED THE UNION, THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

IS ENSHRINED FOREVER.”The north wall of the memorial

shows writings of Lincoln’s second inaugural speech. The south wall has the complete

Gettysburg Address on it. Above that is a mural showing

the angel of truth freeing a slave.

The Lincoln Memorial is huge! You can either enter on the bottom side and take an elevator up, or walk up the stairs at the front.

You have a great view of theNational Mall from the Lincoln Memorial, but it was dark by the time we got there. To the right is the Washington Memorial at night.

FDR Memorial

Dedicated in May 1997, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial honors the man who served nearly four terms as president of the United States and has been called one of America’s greatest leaders. Sculptures of FDR show him sitting with his dog Fala in a wheelchair (though it's hard to tell it's not a regular chair unless you look at the back).

The FDR memorial is the only presidential memorial with the president’s wife in it.

A timeline of dates showing important events in Roosevelt's life can be found in the plaza area. Famous quotes by the president cover the walls. Sculptures depict a Depression-era breadline, a man listening to one of Roosevelt's famous fireside radio chats, and a rural American couple.

The memorial is huge and covers 7.5 acres. Each term of Roosevelt’s presidency is represented by an outdoor “room”. The memorial is accessible to handicapped people since FDR was handicapped. The picture above shows a tactile relief wall with braille writing. However, it was criticized because the dots weren’t spaced properly and the reliefs are too high for a person to actually feel.

Each “room” has a waterfall, growing from smaller to larger. The waterfalls depict how FDR’s presidency grew more complex over time.

MLK

MEM

OR

IAL

Martin Luther King’s memorial was definitely my favorite memorial because of the meaning of everything in it. At the entryway, two stones are parted and a single stone wedge is pushed forward toward the water; the missing piece of what was once a single boulder as you can see from the picture below.

On one side of the stone, the theme of hope is written, with the writing from King's famous 1963 speech written into the stone: "Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." On the other side are inscribed the words: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness”, a statement said by Dr. King when describing how he would like to be remembered. The memorial’s meaning shows that the boulder is the Mountain of Despair, through which every visitor will enter, moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life, and then be released into the open freedom of the plaza.

The stone is the Stone of Hope, from which Dr. King’s image sits, gazing over the water toward the horizon, seeing a future society of justice and equality for which he encouraged all citizens to strive. Many beautiful trees and quotes line the walls around the memorial.

I was interested to learn that Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Memorial, was asked to bid on the MLK Memorial as well, but declined because of all the criticism she got about the Vietnam Memorial.

Vietnam Memorial

With the addition of 6 names in 2010 there are a total of 58, 272 names listed. Approximately 1200 of these names are listed as a missing person. The names arranged on the wall are in chronological order by the date of causality and names are in alphabetical order for the the date they were reported missing.

The statue of three soldiers across from the wall were dedicated after the wall was. Many people had a problem with the layout of the wall and they said it was a disgrace. More about the Vietnam design on the next page.

The Memorial Wall is made up of two walls. The highest tip is 10.1 ft. and the taper to 8” at each end. When a visitor looks at the wall they can see their reflection along with the engraved names. This symbolizes the past and present together. Each wall lists names of those who were KIA or MIA, in chronological order. Visitors can walk along the wall and take pencil rubbings of the names. The wall also symbolized a wound that is healing.

Maya Lin, a 21 year old, Harvard student, won a blind competition to design the wall. She felt that, had the competition not been “blind”, she wouldn’t have won. Her design was criticized for being underground and too plain. It was even called “a black gash of shame”. The Secretary of the Interior even refused to issue a building permit for it! Now, however, it’s become a well-loved tribute.

In 1984, The Three Soldiers statue was placed across from the Memorial Wall. The statue shows three soldiers; Caucasian, African American and Hispanic. The statue is arranged so that the soldiers appear to be looking at the wall.

Korean Memorial

The mural wall consists of 41 panels stretching 165 feet. Over 15,000 pictures of the Korean War were collected from the National archives to create the mural. Photographs were enhanced by computers to develop a uniform lighting effect. When viewed from afar the mural also depicts the mountain ranges of Korea.

It is organized by service as shown.

Next to the wall, are 19 sculpted statues by Frank Gaylord. They are approximately 7’3 and consist of 14 Army soldiers, 3 Marines, 1 Navy, and 1 Air Force. They represent an ethnic cross section of America, with 12 Caucasian, 3 African American, 2 Hispanic, 1 oriental, and 1 Native American.

The statues are very realistic with ponchos and weapons, men hunched over, creeping through the woods.

Washington Monument

George Washington was elected unanimously as the first president of the united states of America in 1789, he has been called the “father of our country.” The Washington monument was created as a show of gratitude to George Washington in helping to create a new form of government and promoting equal treatment under the law. The monument can be seen from all over D.C.•Year started: July 4th 1848•Year completed: December 6 1884• Cost: 1,187, 710•Designer: Robert Mills•Style: Neo Egyptian

In 1854 construction came to a halt because of lack of money. 25 years later the government took over and finished the rest of the monument with marble from a different quarry. This is why the marble changes color toward the bottom.

Marine Corps War Memorial

Iwo Jima Memorial

The Marine Corps War Memorial is just outside Arlington National Cemetery. There is an ongoing rumor that the statue has 13 hands instead of 12 (two for each soldier) and that the 13th hand represents other Marines or the hand of God. The sculptor denies that there are 13 hands.

Arlington National Cemetery

In 1864, US Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton officially designated Arlington Mansion and two hundred surrounding acres as a United States military cemetery.

Today over 300,000 thousand are buried there.

The requirements for burial eligibility are:

• An active member of the United States armed forces.• Any veteran who is a retired active military veteran.• Any veteran honorably discharged prior to October 1, 1949 for medical reasons and who received a rating of 30% or greater disabled.• The president of former president of the united states• Any veteran who was awarded a prestigious medal such as the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor.

President John F. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on November 25, 1963. Within three years, more than 16 million people had visited his gravesite. To better accommodate the large number of visitors, cemetery officials and Kennedy family members decided to create a better site. The final resting place was completed on July 20, 1967.

JFK Memorial

The 3.2 acre site is located on the slope below Arlington House. For the gravesite, the family selected Cape Cod granite paving stones, which had been quarried in 1817 from near the president's home. Clover and sedum were planted around the memorial to look like his old plants that were in his home town in Massachusetts.

At the wish of Mrs. Kennedy, an eternal flame, inspired by the one in Paris, sits at the head of the grave.

The Changing of the Guard takes place every hour or half hour, depending on the season. It is a very formal and elaborate ritual.

The guards keep watch at the Tomb of the Unknowns and it is a great honor. They honor service members who are “Known But to God”. The tomb is guarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Changing of the Guard

The Pentagon

Head Quarters for the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, is one of the world’s largest office buildings. The Pentagon is virtually a city in itself; 23,000 workers contribute to the planning of the safety of our country. Daily workers in the pentagon travel 30 miles through access highways , drive past 200 acres of lawn to park approximately 8, 770 cars in 16 different parking lots; climb 131 stairways or ride 19 escalators to their offices. The ground was broken for the construction of the pentagon on 9/11/41. Exactly 60 years after that, the pentagon was hit by a commercial plane in a terrorist attack on the day most refer to as 9/11.

The Capitol•The Capitol is one of the most visited federal building in the united states• No one is buried in the capitol; a tomb was made for George Washington, but Washington expressed his wishes to be buried at Mt. Vernon and so he was.•The top of the Capitol is 209 ft lower than the top of the Washington Monument.•The building was completed in 1928 after six years of construction.• Since it was completed, the building has overcome three different earthquakes and cost 120 million dollars for repairs.