In Thomas Jefferson’s lifetime, the holidays at Monticello were a time for family gatherings, visiting friends, settling accounts and planning for the new year. For Monticello’s enslaved community, the holiday season was a time for reunion and a possible respite from labor on the Plantation.
Music was an important part of life for enslaved people at Monticello, and particular individuals, like Eston Hemings, within this society were noted for their artistic talents. For many enslaved people at plantations throughout the United States, music making was a way to strengthen family and...
Imagine a world where life moved at four miles an hour, and the most one could readily travel in a day was just thirty miles. Such was the slow world Thomas Jefferson was born into in 1743. Although transportation via Virginia’s waterways was common, especially in the Tidewater area, most people...
October is Virginia Archaeology Month. It offers an opportunity to learn about and celebrate archaeology in the state -- including at Monticello. Before COVID the local focus made archaeological research accessible: you could visit sites and labs, chat with people making discoveries, and find out...
In spite of having little of their own time, enslaved African-American families at Monticello cultivated a rich horticultural tradition. Through the maintenance of their own garden plots, the enslaved community seized a rare moment of independ ence to create something for themselves in a world that...
Visitors to Monticello recorded memories of late afternoon dinners at Monticello “served in half Virginian, half French style in good taste and abundance,” but the records rarely mention the enslaved cooks and their families who made these meals possible.
Visitors to Monticello and the University of Virginia (UVA) can easily see their connections to Thomas Jefferson, the visionary architect of both these U.N. World Heritage sites. The recent dedication of the Memorial to Enslaved Workers at UVA reveals Monticello’s enslaved community and the...
Archaeology is an historical discipline whose goals are to advance our understanding of what happened in the past and why. But unlike the documents on which historians rely -- think Jefferson's letters -- archaeological deposits do not come with dates. In archaeology, we have to do work for the...
Last week archaeologists began test excavations at an early-19th century stone house at Tufton , one of the four quarter farms that comprised Monticello Plantation. The stone house is an important part of the Monticello story, but how just how it fits and even when it was built remain unclear. The...
