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Hemingses of Monticello

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 – 5 P.M.
DEWITT WALLACE DECORATIVE ARTS MUSEUM
HENNAGE AUDITORIUM

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American FamilyAnnette Gordon-Reed, professor of law at New York Law School and professor of history at Rutgers University, discusses her new book “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.” This epic work sets the family’s compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written. Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children View of Monticelloand Hemings’ siblings. Gordon-Reed is also the author of the groundbreaking “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy” and is recognized as one of our country’s most distinguished presidential scholars. A book signing and reception follow the lecture.

This program is co-sponsored by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Programs and exhibitions at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum are supported by the DeWitt Wallace Endowment Fund.