Elsewhere in the news
Monticello Unveils New Center and More
One of Charlottesville's most famous landmarks is celebrating a new addition this weekend. Monticello will open the doors to a new visitors center Saturday morning, bringing years of planning and construction to fruition. In the coming months, there's even more to come. (Nov. 6, 2008, at nbc29.com)
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
Gordon-Reed's new, deeply researched, often gripping story is intended as a biography of the enslaved Hemings family, beginning with Sally's mother, Elizabeth, herself the child of an interracial union between a woman of African descent and an English sea captain by the name of Hemings, and ending shortly after Jefferson's death. But inevitably, the story is as much about Jefferson, who privately controlled the fate of three generations of Hemingses and about 200 other slaves he owned. (Oct. 27, 2008 at www.sfgate.com)
Podcast: America's first principles
In the run up to the US Presidential Election Allan Little presents an appraisal of the man described as America's "Apostle of Freedom": Thomas Jefferson. This programme is set entirely at Jefferson's estate at Monticello, with its vineyards and plantation "street" where slaves once lived and worked and will consider some of the key "Jeffersonian principles". (Oct. 27, 2008, BBC Radio World Service)
Jefferson's hidden slave legacy
Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello is a place of pilgrimage for Americans of every political stripe. (Oct. 26, 2008, BBC News at news.bbc.co.uk)
36 Hours in Charlottesville, Va.
ARRIVING in Charlottesville from the lush, rural Virginia countryside, you almost feel like you've stepped back into ancient Rome. (Oct. 25, 2008 at travel.nytimes.com)