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The Plowboy Interview

Every week, the lanky figure of Roy Underhill—better known to the public as the Woodwright—strides onto the television screens of PBS viewers. His popular television series, "The Woodwright's Shop, " has, for nearly five years, been introducing twentieth-century Americans to a more intimate relationship with wood . . . and glorifying the traditional craftsmanship of the days before power tools.

The show debuted in 1981 to critical acclaim and, since then, has been nominated for three daytime Emmy awards. As companion resources to the series, Underhill has written two successful books, The Woodwright's Shop: A Practical Guide to Traditional Woodcraft (in which he tells readers "how to start with a tree and an axe and make one thing after another until you have a house and everything in it") and The Woodwright's Companion: Exploring Traditional Woodcraft (two chapters of which, "The Whetstone Quarry" and "Hurdles," were excerpted in MOTHER NOS. 80 and 81 respectively). He is currently at work on the third volume of the Woodwright's series, scheduled for publication in the fall of 1986, and a fourth book on historical interpretation in a museum environment (the working title of the latter book, Roy says facetiously, is The Whores of Perception). Furthermore, Roy writes a column, "The Old Hand Ways, " for a new bimonthly magazine entitled Wood.

As if his Woodwright-related activities weren't quite enough, Underhill is employed full-time at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, where he is the master housewright in charge of the Carpenter's Yard. And somehow, between writing books, filming TV shows, answering the ever-jangling phone, and making dozens of speeches and personal appearances, he finds the time to be a family man. He and his wife, lane, have two daughters, Rachel, six, and Eleanor, four. Roy dedicated his second book to Yane, a talented actress, noting her accommodation of his burgeoning career in the inscription, which reads, "To Jane: Broadway's loss is our gain."


An individual of less substance would have been overwhelmed by such a grueling schedule and been satisfied to become a mere celebrity. But not Underhill: He feels that there's more to being the Woodwright than just filming the TV show. First and foremost, Roy views himself as an experimental historian. In his daily work at Williamsburg (which he refers to as a land-bound Kon-Tiki), he regularly discovers fragments of information that help fill the gaps that exist in the overall knowledge of eighteenth-century life and craftsmanship. Second, Roy is a communicator. And his communications skills are vital to his work, enabling him to chronicle and preserve accurately the historical discoveries he makes.

Staff member Pamela Phillips and photographers Jack Green and Steve Keull visited with Underhill on two occasions, once at his work site in Colonial Williamsburg and again on the set of the PBS affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Roy films "The Woodwright's Shop." With candor and wicked wit (often self-directed), Underhill discussed his unusual occupation and its relevance to contemporary Americans, who, he admits, are frequently better acquainted with a chain saw than an ax. However, in addition to containing entertaining commentary on woodhand tools, and appropriate technology—subjects on which Roy can discourse for extended periods of time—this Plowboy interview provides refreshing reinforcement of the American dream. Underhill is undeniable proof that people who work hard and believe in themselves can still make an excellent living doing something they enjoy.

PLOWBOY: How did you become the Woodwright? In the beginning, you couldn't foresee where your love of traditional skills would lead, could you?

UNDERHILL: I'd like to think I did know where it would lead. In one way or another, you see, I've always been doing what I'm doing now. I grew up in Washington, D.C., and my older sister worked at the Smithsonian Institution researching early American life and American history, so I was exposed to those subjects through her. I was aware that people could make an occupation of uncovering information on how men and women lived in the past and how they supported themselves. And my whole family was science-oriented; I always knew it as a discipline.

Even as a little kid, I was continually making things, and I remember my sister showing me how to fashion willow whistles, or toys out of cigar boxes. Those things were all very important to me, not just forms of frivolity. Anyway, wanting to create with my hands has always been with me; I always knew that this was what I wanted to do.

The teaching instinct—and teaching's what I value the most—has always been a part of me, too. When I was 12 years old or so, as I worked in my little shop down in the basement of our house, I'd pretend I was instructing a class, explaining every step I was taking.

PLOWBOY: How did you zero in on your specialty, early American woodworking?

UNDERHILL: That came later. When I was in high school, I moved into higher technology and was very involved with electronics and did some work on infrared image converters and other things used in night-vision technology. Also, when skateboards were first popular, I made one with rocket engines on it—two electrically fired, zinc-sulfur rockets. My friends and I decided to try it out—keep in mind, now, this is the middle of Washington, D.C.—and it exploded. The rockets flew off, and one of them wrecked the wheel of a car parked nearby. The other one shot off somewhere into suburbia. I just barely escaped with my life.

Thomas Edison was one of my childhood idols. But even at that time I was slowly formulating a conclusion that I still hold: It's hard for today's individual to be creative and inventive in the way Edison was. Nowadays, a person can't say, "I'm going to invent the light bulb." It takes tremendous research facilities to do that sort of thing.

PLOWBOY: But didn't Edison have a huge research warehouse and lots of technicians working for him?

UNDERHILL: It came to that later on in his career, and it illustrates the point I'm trying to make: At some point I decided that I couldn't accomplish anything significant in higher technology without working as part of a big research facility. But I wanted to invent by myself; I like to work on things by myself. When I started looking to the past, I thought that it would have been easier then for someone—a lone person—to make a contribution. So I started searching for my place in the past. Now I work at Williamsburg, and worldwide, with hundreds of other researchers in dozens of disciplines. I think the real reason I chose this specialty was to avoid having to convert to the metric system. I could keep on thinking in cubits, inches, and feet.

PLOWBOY: Did your formal education prepare you for a career as the Woodwright?

UNDERHILL: Well, I'd been reading about various technologies all along and doing my own little projects as I've mentioned. After high school I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and through the theater department became interested in directing. I think the reason I went into directing was that I knew I wanted to communicate what I'd been learning. It was a terribly creative time, very exciting. I learned a lot about the technical end of my craft and did quite a bit of hands-on work designing and building sets. I eventually got a B.F.A. in theater direction.

PLOWBOY: And then what?

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