Catherine Coiner Crittenden
Monticello Staff
Senior Digital Technician
Papers Editor/Staff
Charlottesville, Virginia
Interests
About Me
Student, community activist, writer.
Aren't these wine glasses beautiful? My family drinks from reproductions of them at every holiday dinner.more »
Lately I've been transcribing correspondence from 1823, which is full of references to the founding of the University of Virginia. Here's a quote from a letter I worked on this morning: I shall recieve, with high pleasure, your visit in the autumn. when the time approaches, we must...more »
Dubbed "the Jezebel of the Old Dominion." When John Randolph of Roanoke wrote to her (through her husband Gouveneur Morris), "If he [her husband] be not both blind and deaf, he must sooner or later, unmask you, unless he too die of the 'cramp in his stomach' you understand me!"; she...more »
I'm always happy when it's time to work on a family letter. Ellen's ennui, Martha's headaches, Nicholas and Virginia's courtship...the family letters have it all. And they just keep coming!more »
The place to go if you don't want to look through every back-of-the-book index. Updated yearly as new print volumes are released.more »
Returning to Monticello after long periods of absence during his presidency, TJ was unprepared for the demands of feeding his growing family and flood of guests.more »
I wonder why TJ never replied?more »
DNA says a male Jefferson fathered one of Sally Hemings's children; documentary evidence points more closely to TJ as the father of all of her children.more »
No, but he loved his veggies! Peas were his favorite; he also ate asparagus, beets, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, haricots, kale, lettuce, lima beans, okra, parsnips, potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, salsify, snap beans, spinach, squash, tomatoes, and turnips...more »
Two young women seek privacy at overcrowded Monticello.more »
Possibly my favorite Jefferson grandchild. In an 1837 letter to his sister Septimia, he described his young son: "Jack is the bulliest boy in the state. I wish you could see him. He is the most perfect waggletail I ever saw. Restless, rolling, tumbling and never quiet or stastionary a...more »
I can relate--this list of quotes could be a list of status updates from my own FB page!more »
This is an opportunity to tour the upstairs--where most of Jefferson's family lived. Be sure to ask your guide about the granddaughters' "cuddy" off the dome room.more »
Native Americans are anthropological subjects. Native Americans are enemies. Native Americans are allies. TJ's mind held all three of these ideas.more »
I bookmarked this "Inventing America: The Interplay of Technology and Democracy in Shaping American Identity" conference program because I like the cover portrait of Jefferson as scientist.more »
A map that Spain never wanted us to see!more »
By the time of his retirement, TJ had nothing positive to say about Great Britain's government.more »
The impact of the events at the start of the French Revolution--while he was still in Paris--was so great that TJ devoted much of his autobiography to them.more »