Reconstruction of the Governor’s Palace

Reverend W. A. R. Goodwin and John D. Rockefeller Jr., the two key figures behind the reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg, applied a passionate attention to detail in their restoration efforts. Furnishings, houses, and gardens were all copied exactly from colonial styles and came to represent a kind of symbiosis between those suffering the brunt of the Great Depression and those who had endured the hardships of the American Revolution a century and a half earlier. This 1932 photograph shows construction progress on the southwest face of the Governor's Palace.