Saving Slave Houses “SHEET” Field School Documentaries…

Nerds Make Media is honored to work with Saving Slave Houses founder Jobie Hill. Our collaboration is producing a series of short documentaries about the 2024 & 2025 SHEET field school - the Slave Houses Exploration & Evidence Tracing field school. The two season hybrid field school and public workshop takes place at Pharsalia in Nelson County, Virginia, a unique 1816 plantation with many preserved slave houses. Many SHEET participants are themselves descendants of slaves, and come from a variety of backgrounds. All the field school students have in common a deep interest in historic preservation, and the desire to uncover and tell the neglected stories of enslaved people in America. 

The school focused primarily on the unique Kitchen Hospital, a building rich in history. Over 1300 slaves births were recorded at Pharsalia, and many women and children lived and worked inside the Kitchen Hospital. During the 2024 season, participants discovered what is believed to be the foundation walls of an earlier structure. The 2025 archeology workshop continued excavations of the floor of the Kitchen Hospital, removing layers of history to reveal the mysteries that lie beneath.