Early American Life

A man and an axe can bring down a tree in short order, but clearing a farm from a forest takes a bit more. Get the neighbors and knock 'em down domino-style. Colonials called it a chopping bee, and Gregory LeFever tells us how it all worked in our April 2010 issue.

See issue contents.

Linda Ann Marie Bertanzetti Selected Among Top Artisans

Each year Early American Life invites the best artisans in America to be judged by leading museum curators and other experts to find the best craftwork made in traditional styles, materials, and methods for the Directory of Traditional American Crafts. We are delighted that our jurors selected Linda Ann Marie Bertanzetti as crafting some of America's best handwork in the category "Floor Coverings" for our 2009 Directory

Linda Ann Marie Bertanzetti weaves on her farm in Columbiana, Ohio, in a large, custom-built weaving studio, which also houses a museum and retail shop. She calls her business L. A. M. B. Handwoven Rugs.

Over the years she has collected more than fifty vintage hand looms dating back to the 1880s, all of which have been restored to perfect working order. In her collection are models representative of most of the major manufacturers’ offerings during the golden age of cottage-industry weaving in America. Several of these antique looms are available for sale.

Can a Condo Be Early American?

Some early copies of the February 2010 issue of Early American Life did not include the story about the Webb Condominium ("Can a Condo Be Early American?") due to production problems.

You can download a copy of the complete story by clicking here. Warning: the file is 700 kilobytes and takes a while to download. Your system will appear unresponsive until it finishes.

Early American Life Selected as Best

The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists selected Early American Life as the Best Trade Publication in Ohio in its 2009 SPJ Awards. We are proud to have been chosen by our peers for the quality of our overall magazine. In addition, our story “Deconstructing Montpelier” by Winfield Ross was chosen as the Best General Story in the 2009 awards.

Click here to read more.

Website Updates

We've been trying to make our website more usable, useful, and informative, so we've added several refinements over the last few weeks. Two that we'd like to bring to your attention are a more interactive Table of Contents and an improved Readers' Exchange.

Our Table of Contents for the current issue (click "Contents" on the menu bar at left) was originally designed to tell you a bit about the stories in our current issue—we hoped it would make you run out and buy an issue. We have now provided a direct link to our Sources page for each story (if one is available) so you can more easily navigate the website.

Click here to read more.

New Old Construction in Williamsburg

Reconstruction of Richard Charlton’s 18th century Coffeehouse is underway in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. The Foundation’s Architectural Historians designed the building to appear as close to the original as evidence permits, and the plan incorporates the remaining portions of the Coffeehouse’s original foundations. The building’s site, the location of the Cary Peyton Armistead House until 1995, has been the subject of extensive archaeological research in consultation with the Armistead family.