A virtual fellow's forum with Emelia Abbé Robertson, Ph.D. Candidate in the English Language and Literature Department, the University of Michigan from May 2021. Recording available.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter, Martha, about the continuous stream of guests that had been making their way to Monticello. Though she had expressed her consternation at being “Allways in a croud,” Jefferson himself urged her to think of “the present manners and usages of our country,” and to “consider that these visits are evidences of the general esteem which we have been all our lives trying to merit.” This project explores lived experiences and material conditions of those persons laboring on the Monticello estate to actualize the convivial social atmosphere that played host to the elite “crouds” coming to the little mountain. It will explore the ways in which alcohol production and social drinking on the estate created a network of objects and persons whose craftsmanship and collaboration allowed—paradoxically—for disruptions to Monticello’s social order.
About the Speaker
Emelia Abbé Robertson is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Language and Literature Department at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation, "Brewing Sedition: The Insurgent Objects of Drinking in Early America", focuses on the roles of marginalized persons in building a revolutionary print and material culture from the tavern. Her work has appeared in Early American Literature, and her next project explores the intersections of poverty and material culture in the early republic.
Recorded Program
