get in touch with your inner eighteenth century

i am totally psyched to go to colonial williamsburg this weekend! i plan on stopping on my way to virginia beach for my last week of fall travel.

here are some of the highlights to experience in colonial williamsburg:
-beautiful fall leaves and eighteenth century autumn decorations on houses
-men in knee breeches and frock coats
-virginia's new government to debate the need for a national bill of rights
-fresh, soft gingerbread! mmm
-the local apothecary, blacksmith, and my favorite of course, the millinery

i don't know why i love colonial williamsburg so much. it's not merely that this blog is named after my senior thesis, which focuses on jane austen and eighteenth century concepts of marriage and social harmony.

i think it's that it was the time for an expansion of thought in every direction-politics, social contract, education, economy, gender relations, race, equality. not that everything was equal and liberal in the 1700s. but it was the age of women's first extensive foray into the trade world, of landed gentry and poor man alike calling the need for representation in government, and of john adams vehemently declaring that the clause condemning slavery in the original declaration of independence must not be striken from it--but alas it was. so was the eighteenth century not perfect.

but still a foundation for thought.