DONE TO A TURN

A rotisserie is the best way to roast meats and fowl to even doneness but a tiring task when you have to turn the spit without electricity. Our ingenious ancestors invented early labor saving innovations for even cooking from a special breed of dogs to spin the spit to elaborate mechanisms that turned like clockwork.

Tom Kelleher

KEEPING HISTORY ALIVE

Serial restorers Jenay and Dave Evans found the 1780s home of a Minuteman in Seekonk, Massachusetts, and turned it into a surprisingly bright and airy home for their family and collection 18th and 19th Century country-style of antiques.

Dawn C. Adiletta

THE BEAUTY OF BROWN

Invented in England in the 18th Century, a translucent brown glaze called Rockingham soon became a favorite finish for American yellow ware. Nearly every household likely had a piece or several of the glowing brown pottery either as useful tableware or decorative sculpture.

Jeanmarie Andrews

WALKING THROUGH HISTORY

Spread over 200 acres in Staunton, Virginia, the Frontier Culture Museum is a living history museum with a different approach—instead of a single town or farm, it shows how traditions from around the world came together to form the beliefs and values of pioneers in Appalachia and the Shenandoah Valley.

Winfield Ross

TUDOR AMERICA

James I, the first Stewart King of England, was on the throne when the first Englishmen founded Jamestown but its was his ancestors, the Tudor Dynasty, that was determined to make a go of America and their efforts were important in shaping our shared history.

BARLEY SUGAR

When sugar was rare and expensive, it was treated only as a spice, a medicine, and a status symbol. But as America was settled, sugar became cheap and evolved into candy. Barley sugar was one of the first medicines to make the transition and likely was a treat in many colonial children’s holiday stockings.

ISLAND SURVIVOR AND SAVIOR

The oldest Moravian church in the America (and Western Hemisphere) sits proudly on a hill on the tiny island of Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands. Once a working plantation dedicated to educating slaves and saving their souls, the continuing mission of its island congregation is helping the surrounding community.

JEWELS MADE FROM SAND

To make multiple pieces of jewelry, silversmiths in early America relied on the ancient practice of making molds for the molten metal out of packed sand. A skilled artisan and Directory artist shows us step-by-step how they did it.

Jeffery Jobe