Teaching for Historic Places Lesson Plan

An Antebellum Plantation in Virginia

Everyday Life and the Built Environment
at the Sweet Briar Plantation

Visual Evidence

Figure 8: Slave Cabin behind Sweet Briar House [ Print Figure ]

How many rooms do you think there are in this house? Why? Who lived in this house? What were the jobs of the people who lived in this house?

Figure 9: Architectural Plan of the First Floor of Sweet Briar House. [ Print Figure ]

Source: Matt Tyree, Craddock & Cunningham Architects.
Review the drawing of Sweet Briar House in Fig. 3 and see if you can find the stairs that are drawn on this plan. Why do you think the walls on the plan are shaded in different colors? What are the two large rooms labeled (a) and (b)? Can you find them in Fig. 2?

Figure 10: Millstone on the grounds of Sweet Briar House. [ Print Figure ]

Millstone

Note: this circular object was one half of an apparatus used to grind wheat or corn.

What do you think the grooves were used for?
Why do you think this 100+ year old artifact was left behind?
What is it being used for today?

Figure 11: Interior of Sweet Briar House, circa 1920s [ Print Figure ]

Harris & Ewing Studio, Washington DC.
Can you find the stairs in this photograph on the plan of the first floor (Fig. 9)? What stands to the right of the stairs on the first floor? How does this staircase compare to stairwells in your school?

Figure 12: Sweet Briar House, the home of Indiana Fletcher Williams [ Print Figure ]

How many shapes can you identify on the front of the house? What function did the covered porch serve? Are the hedges symmetrical? Is the house?

Figure 13: Mt. San Angelo, the home of Elizabeth Fletcher Mosby (Indiana's sister). [ Print Figure ]

How many columns are present on the front of this building? Compare this photograph to Sweet Briar House. What is similar? Different? How do the landscapes in Fig. 12 and 13 compare?

Figures