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I'm just mccloud I'm an
assistant curator in the
historic preservation and
collections department here at
Mount Vernon we're standing in
one of the bunk rooms at the
greenhouse slave quarters which
with the main housing for
enslaved workers on Mansion
House Farm this structure was
originally completed in 1792 and
it consists of a central
two-story greenhouse with one
story wings on either side that
functioned as housing for
displaced workers Washington
really designed this as a two
faced structure so you have the
elegant greenhouse opening up
into the ornamental garden and
then you have these wings on
either side that serve a very
utilitarian purpose and you
really can't tell the function
of these wings right here in the
garden looking at the greenhouse
this structure was built by
enslaved carpenters and
bricklayers and Washington was
probably inspired by military
barracks when he ordered them to
construct these banks which were
deficient way to house a large
number of people in a small
space this is different from the
typical housing foreign state
workers on the outlying farms
where there were a smaller
wooden cabins that has one or
two families by contrast in this
building there were four bunk
rooms 34 men and 14 women and
children and they were probably
about 10 to 20 people who lived
in each case must the slaves who
lives in this building works
either in the house or at
skilled trades such as carpentry
bricklaying fitting or gardening
the reason that washington
probably chose this structure
housing with that most of these
workers were men who were either
single or had family is on one
of washington's outlying farms
several miles away
these men with live here during
the week and visit their family
on Sunday which was their only
day off so for example now who
is that blacks met here I
Mansion House Farm with married
to Lucy who is a field worker on
don't run farm and she lived
there with their two children so
that would have been able to
visit only one day a week in
this space agency examples of
artifacts that enslaved people
would have
and used such as a reproduction
livery suit which is the outfit
that male house slaves would
have worn and cooking implements
that and save fuel used to cook
their own meals over the open
heart and save people are also
permitted to have their own
personal garden plots where they
grew vegetables and they hunted
and trapped while the animals to
supplement their weekly rations
of cornmeal and salted fish