Description
After the Revolution, houses in eastern Virginia began to change in ways that often seem so varied as to defy a cohesive explanation. From a systematic examination of many houses, however, pattens emerge and invite analysis. This study is about what the houses and their associated documents have to say: Virginians began to change their domestic designs in order to accommodate new attitudes toward slavery in general, and domestic slavery in particular. "Retooling" the Virginia house for a new century, however, was not just an exercise in manipulation on the part of white Vrginians. African-Virginians--the enslaved domestics--used these revised houses both for their own purposes and, often, to test the limits of their owner's control over their lives and work.
