"Connecting to the Stories of People" Matt Webster on the Bray School Initiative by National Trust for Historic Preservation published on 2022-10-11T22:30:10Z An interview with Matt Webster executive director, architectural preservation and research at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, Virginia for a story on SavingPlaces.org. https://savingplaces.org/stories/stories-and-structure-the-history-of-black-education-at-the-williamsburg-bray-school Transcript: Matt Webster: You know, for me, I like how we can connect the building and everything you're seeing to the story of people. One of the things that I feel very strongly about in protecting is, are the stories of those people. So a fingerprint in a brick or the way molding profiles are run, or there's some 18th century nails that are shoved underneath of a stair tread clearly to shim it, shim it up and stop it from squeaking. That were all done by these workers in the 18th century that we don't have the names of, that likely don't exist in the written record. So that is, that's their story. And I mean, overall, that's the stuff that, that I find fascinating and feel that we have a real obligation to protect because there's so many stories of people that otherwise don't exist in the written record. And that that building is their story.
