by J. Hunter Barbour We call them "goods" because we mean what
the word means: things "having in adequate degree those
properties which a thing of the kind ought to have." Good as far
as it goes, that definition, taken from the Oxford English
Dictionary, does not quite cover the wares produced by the
tradespeople in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area. Their
goods are more than adequate. Working in eighteenth-century garb
at restored or reconstructed colonial businesses and sites,
masters, journeymen, and apprentices use period tools and
techniques to reproduce by hand the goods of twenty-two historic
trades. Silver services, woven cloth, wooden casks, iron
tomahawks, gentlemen's boots, ladies' shoes, dining room
candlesticks ...they turn out examples of the best technology
had to offer two centuries and more ago, keeping their
occupations alive, and demonstrating the role of technology in
culture. They supply what, in another definition of goods, the
OED says "is expected or required (for a purpose express