Department of History

Think colonial life was all about pious pilgrims, powdered wigs, and freedom for all? Think again! Over two dozen modern-day adventures from the U.S. and U.K. find out the hard way what early American colonial life was really like when they struggle to create a functioning and profitable colony in Colonial House.The eight-part COLONIAL HOUSE shatters histroical myths and common misconceptions by tracking the first-hand experiences of the colonists as they live for five months on an isolated stretch of the Maine coast. What happens when people are removed from familiar modern conveniences and placed into a 1682-era society with puritanical civil laws, rigid class and gender roles, indentured servitude, and mandatory religious worship? Witness the colonists' personal and communal challenges, seeing both the expected-backbreaking labor, bad weather and primitive living conditions-as well as the unexpected-religious cnflicts, surprising confessions, devastating news from the outside world, and even an AWOL colonist. COLONIAL HOUSE brings history to life and provides a glimpse into the daily life and experiences that helped shape our national character.