Contribution
The Jefferson Library supports the work of all other departments at Monticello. Whether that happens to be tracking down and obtaining an obscure journal article, or ordering a new book, or connecting a staff member with the right person, we do it all. Here are two examples of how our library resources have helped other departments make new discoveries and reinterpret spaces.
Contribution
Reimagining Jefferson's Private Suite
Our curatorial department staff are always researching, learning, and reinterpreting spaces as they make new discoveries. Recently, they completed a major reinterpretation of Jefferson’s private suite. Pictured here are “before” and “after” images of the space, and the library materials that helped to make the change happen.
Top left: Jefferson's Cabinet, pre-reinterpretation; Top right: Jefferson's Cabinet after its 2018 re-interpretation.
Bottom left: With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture-Making, ed. Donald C. Williams et al.; Bottom center: Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens, by Wolfram Koeppe; Bottom right: Wallpaper in New England, by Richard C. Nylander et al.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series
Our colleagues in the Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series project are some of our most frequent and engaged users, and collaborators in growing our collections. Here is just one instance of how the materials held or sourced by the Jefferson Library support the documentary editing work of our colleagues, which in turn fuels other scholarship.
Left to Right: Facsimile of Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 6 March 1809, Library of Congress; Humboldt, Personal Narrative, trans. Jason Wilson (1995); Helmut de Terra, “Alexander von Humboldt’s Correspondence with Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin,” American Philosophical Society, Proceedings 103 (1959): 783–806; Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series volume 1, pp. 24-25 showing transcription of letter; Sandra Rebok, Humboldt and Jefferson: A Transatlantic Friendship of the Enlightenment (2014).