NEH Landmarks Workshop:
All Men Are Created Equal? Jefferson and Community Life at Monticello
and the University of Virginia
Enslaved Community
Richard Vanden Bosch, Carol Grossi, Vantina Huang, Janet Kanady
Teacher Bios
Domestic
workers
Field
Workers
Artisans
Welcome to the Lobby
Classroom
application
Name of Museum
Teachers
Vantina Huang is a
kindergarten teacher in
Brooklyn, New York. She has
been teaching for 16 years.
Janet Kanady is a library
media specialist at Dover
High School in Arkansas.
She has been teaching for 22
years.
Richard Vanden Bosch has
been teaching American
history and political science
for the last twenty-five years
at both the secondary and
college levels. He resides in
Modesto, CA.
Carol Grossi has been
teaching social studies, math
and language arts to 5th
graders for 14 years in
Torrance, California.
Back to Lobby
Name of Museum
Discuss the stratification of slave society:
The Enslaved Field Works
Field Workers Treated
Differently
Treatment
of Field
Workers
#1
Back to Lobby
Field Workers and their
Families
Field Workers Spent
Their Time
Family Life
of Field
Workers #3
Name of Museum
Discuss the stratification of slave society:
The Enslaved Artisans
Meet Some of the
Artisans
Meet Some of the
Artisans
Learning the Skills
Theme #2
Theme #1
Center of Industry:
The Artisans of Mulberry
Row
Back to Lobby
Name of Museum
Discuss the stratification of slave society:
The Enslaved Domestic Workers
Burwell Carter
Edith Fossett
artifact 11
Back to Lobby
The Hemings
Family
Name of Museum
Field Workers Treated Differently
Insert Artifact
Picture Here
Slaves that worked in the fields were treated differently from
the household slaves and the artisan slaves. The equipment they needed
was different and the work harder. The field workers also had an overseer to
watch over them. In Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, the women slaves were
issued hats because they were outside working in the sun. slaves were given
weekly food rations. Twice a year they were given cloth for a suit of clothes.
Once every 3 years they were given hats, socks, a blanket, and a mattress.
There were several types of field work. The enslaved could work on crops,
with bees, cattle, poultry, and sheep. (Monticello website)
link to the book: http://tinyurl.com/jo5od2s
Back toField Workers
Name of Museum
Field Workers Spent Their Time
The jobs of the field workers varied. Here is a link to the work one woman
slave, Minerva, did.
https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/minerva
Here is a second link from Monticello on the work field workers did.
https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/work
Here is a third link to the quarter farms Thomas Jefferson owned.
https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/quarter-farms
Back to Field Workers
Name of Museum
Field workers and Their Families
Picture
from
Monticel
lo.org
Thomas Jefferson tried to keep families together for the most part. Jefferson said
“Nobody feels more strongly than I do the desire to make all practicable sacrifices
to keep man and wife together” He did, however, rent slaves out to other
plantations which divided families for periods of time.
In one instance he allowed a husband and wife to remain together. From the book
Those Who Labor for My Happiness:
The situation may have been similar to that of the wagoner David Hern and his
wife Fanny, as remembered by Edmund Bacon. Fanny, too, was a trainee cook at
the President's House, and she and her husband "got into a terrible quarrel. Davy
was jealous of his wife, and, I reckon, with good reason." Bacon was summoned to
take them to Alexandria to be sold. "They wept, and begged, and made good
promises, and made such an ado, that they begged the old gentleman out of it.
But it was a good lesson for them."
Back to Field
Workers
Name of Museum
Center of Industry:
The Artisans of Mulberry Row
Essential Question: What professions did enslaved artisans
do?
Mulberry Row was the home of more than 20 workshops, storage
facilities, and homes where enslaved individuals lived and worked, but
it also included free African Americans, indentured servants, and white
artisans. Trades helped build and maintain Monticello, but these trades
also augmented the resources of plantation society. Members of several
enslaved families, including the Gillettes, Grangers, Hemingses, Herns,
and Fossetts, lived and worked on Mulberry Row.
The enslaved community served as joiners, tinsmiths, nailers, weavers,
spinners, blacksmiths, carpenters, sawyers, or house servants.
Back to Artisan Room
Name of Museum
Meet Some of the Artisans
Essential Question: What was life like for various enslaved
artisans?
Isaac Jefferson operated the plantation’s tinsmithing shop. He also worked in
the blacksmith and the nail making shops. In a fourteen-hour workday, he
http://classroom.monticello.org/teachers/gallery/image/111/Isaac-Jefferson/
https://www.monticello.org/mulberry-row/people/joseph-fossett
"cut and headed one thousand nails." In six months, he could make "one
thousand pounds of nails in six sizes." For his work, he earned about eighty
cents a day.
Joseph Fossett at the age of 16 began to learn blacksmithing, and from 1807
to 1827 he ran the blacksmith shop at Monticello. In 1806, Jefferson
considered Fossett a runaway when he journeyed to Washington, D.C., to see
his wife; they were finally reunited in 1809 when Jefferson left office. He was
described as “a very fine workman; could do anything it was necessary to do
with steel or iron.” Unlike most slaves, Joseph received a share of the shop’s
profits, earning one-sixth of the money collected.
to RoomRoom
1
Back Back
to Artisan
Name of Museum
Guiding Question #1
Theme #3
Learning the Skills
Essential Question: What was life like for various enslaved artisans?
Jefferson wanted to hire white artisans to train African American artisans. Jefferson
hoped that African Americans would be encouraged to imitate their mentors and
achieve mastery. He wanted to incentive production. Often, slaves became just as
highly skilled in specific trades as the white artisans who taught them.
Back
Next
to Room
Page 1
https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/textile-shop
Name of Museum
Learn More About the Families
Guiding Question #1
Theme #3
“The participants in the Getting Word project tell stories that show
the skills, values, and powerful bonds of family that have been
passed down over seven generations.”
~ https://www.monticello.org/getting-word/stories/hear-stories
Download the following app: "Slavery at Monticello: Life and Work
on Mulberry Row"
Back to Lobby
of Museum
The HemingsName
Family
10 chi
Jefferson’s deed of
manumission for Robert
Hemings.
What was the social
status of those that
worked in the
house?
Elizabeth Hemings (Betty) was matriarch of the
Hemings family. 75 of her descendants worked at
Monticello. Many of them were domestic workers or
artisans with significant roles on the mountaintop
though they were not always visible to guests as a
result of Jefferson’s social engineering of the house
itself. Some were allowed to retain profits they made
off the mountain. They enjoyed more freedom of
movement than most of Jefferson’s slaves, and in the
hierarchy of slaves, they were at the top. Thomas
Jefferson freed three of Betty’s sons and six of her
grandchildren, the only slaves that he freed during his
lifetime. Lucia Stanton explains that during Jefferson’s
retirement a “visitor who did not wander over to
Mulberry Row or down to the cellar dependencies
would have seen only Hemingses.”
Next
Name of Museum
The Hemings Family Descendents
Descendents of the
Hemings
Family
10 chi
Rev. Robert Hughes
Peter Fossett
https://www.monticello.org/getting-wor
d/people/peter-fossett
Frederick Madison Roberts
https://www.monticello.org/getting-word/st
ories/religion
Back to Domestics
https://www.monticello.org/gettingword/stories/equal-rights
Name of Museum
Burwell Carter
10 chi
Burwell Carter was present with
Jefferson when he died on July 4,
1826,
What was the social
status of those that
worked in the
house?
Burwell Carter, a grandson of Elizabeth
Hemings, began working in the nailery at 10
years old. He learned how to paint and glaze
windows which were valuable skills during the
building of Monticello. During Jefferson’s
retirement, he became his man servant. As the
butler, he directed the activities of the
housemaids, waiters, and porters. He was very
highly regarded by Jefferson who granted him
his freedom and gave him $300 to being a
trade of painting and glazing. He worked for
friends of Jefferson and at the University of
Virginia.
Back to Domestics
Name of Museum
Edith Fossett
10 chi
The Kitchen at Monticello
What was the social
status of those that
worked in the
house?
Edith Fossett was married to a grandson
of Elizabeth Hemings. She was trained to
cook in the French style while living at
the President’s house. Benjamin Latrobe
commented that, “The dinner was
excellent, cooked rather in the French
style, the dessert was profuse and
extremely elegant” When the president
retired, she returned to Monticello and
resumed her duties as head cook. To
reward her for her service, Jefferson paid
her $2 a month. In 1837 Edith’s husband
Joe purchased her freedom.
Back to Domestics
Name of Museum
Teaching Applications
For lower levels:
*Use Pictures and
Slide show to tell a
story
*Compare dress
styles from then
and now
*Family Tree
*Use primary
documents to
think/pair/share or
jigsaw
For Middle Levels:
*Use technology to
download the
Monticello Slavery
APP
*Use the Slavery at
Monticello APP to tour
the grounds at
Monticello on field trip
*Describe the patterns
and shapes in
Monticello buildings
and grounds
*Using a quill pen,
write a letter detailing
your activities for a
day
Back to Lobby
For High School
Levels
*Explain how
Jefferson was
hypocritical about
slavery
*Why study Jefferson?
*Compare and
contrast household,
artisan, and field
slaves.
*Critique writings on
Jefferson
*Explain letters of
introduction & Create
one for a friend to
meet Thomas
Jefferson