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Spotlight: Disparities in Wealth in Jefferson's Day

 

Biographies

Mary Hemings Bell

Mary Hemings Bell was born into slavery but became a free property owner in Charlottesville in adulthood. Learn more about her struggles and triumphs.

Albert Gallatin

A fight over federal fiscal and monetary policy was at the center of politics in the early American republic. Jefferson’s champion in that fight was Albert Gallatin.

George Granger

Learn more about the man who was the only enslaved man to become an overseer, a paid position, at Monticello.

Andrew Jackson Roberts

Atypical of many African Americans' experience in the Jim Crow Era, A. J. Roberts was able to acquire property and amass wealth, ensuring the success of his children.

Edmund Bacon

One of Monticello's overseers, Bacon was known to loan money to Jefferson, focused on accumulating wealth, and eventually moved to Kentucky to buy his own farm to breed horses.