Monticello Blog

What gives spurious quotes away as "fakes." When we used to receive questions about these, we would often know right away that it wasn't a genuine excerpt from Jefferson's writings. How did we know?

After my freshman year at Georgetown University I returned to my hometown for a summer internship in the Education and Visitor Programs Department at Monticello.

Around 1811, Jefferson wrote a letter to his granddaughter Cornelia Jefferson Randolph, which contained a list of twelve “Canons of Conduct in Life” – rules to live by, in essence. In 1825 he sent the same list, minus two rules, to a baby boy named Thomas Jefferson Smith in response to a request from the child’s father.

A while ago I spent a little time (by which I mean maybe 26 hours or so) doing research in response to a patron's question about Mary Jefferson Bolling, Thomas Jefferson's older sister.

Over 20 years after Oriel Pie-Sunyer, William Kelso brought a different set of field techniques to his work on Mulberry Row.

Everyone knows that archaeologists dig. But it is less widely appreciated that just how they dig and what they find varies with the kinds of questions they ask and the assumptions they make.

I often conclude my tours of Mulberry Row with the story of Peter Fossett, the son of Monticello’s blacksmith Joseph Fossett and his wife Edith, Monticello’s head cook.

Leni Sorensen, our African American Research Historian and a culinary historian of national repute, has once again made this month's dish and here we include her notes and pictures.

Peter Hatch uncovered Jefferson’s experimental garden at Monticello, recognized its revolutionary influence and restored it for posterity.

I found something the other day which has turned out to be very interesting indeed.