Unveiling the Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

0:00 This podcast Spotlight for Success is our way of highlighting the incredible success stories happening in education right here in our home state of Georgia. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Melanie Holland, who has made a significant impact in the field of social studies education. We'll explore her journey, insights and the positive changes she's creating for students and teachers every day. So let's get started. Melanie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure, absolutely. My name is Melanie Holland. I work at Thomas Jefferson's, Monticello in Virginia, so not actually based in Georgia, but we talk to a lot of Georgia teachers and students, and I have been there for about 23 years.

0:43 I'm the administrator of teacher learning and I'm thrilled to be able to work with teachers and students every day. That is wonderful. Can you tell us how you arrived at going into this for a career, because you've done this a long time? I have. Yeah, I kind of stumbled into it. I got a degree in history when I was in college, but I started working actually in the IT department at Monticello, so I've worked in many different departments there. I got my master's in education in 2012 and started working exclusively in the education department with teachers and students. So that is great. Can you share with us maybe some milestones you've experienced in your work at the museum? Yeah, I've seen a lot over my time there.

1:25 A lot has changed. A lot has changed in how we interpret at Monticello. Monticello is the home of Thomas Jefferson, was the home of Thomas Jefferson, who was the third president of the United States. He was also the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and he was also a lifelong enslaver. So there's a lot to talk about. When people come on site or when we're talking with teachers and students off site, there's the whole paradox of the man that wrote those words that are just seminal to us as Americans. It's like our birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, and still he owned people, and so how do we reconcile that? We're never going to be able to completely reconcile that, but that's something we explore with teachers and students and it's important to understand and explore that, to understand where we are now.

2:13 And one really great way to do it is at Monticello. That power of place. Coming to Monticello really kind of puts you in a different, a different. It's not transporting you back in time, but it does allow you to kind of think about things in a different way than you might could even in a classroom or somewhere else, because you get to see the actual structure, the building that was built by enslaved people but designed by Monticell- designed by Thomas Jefferson. You can see bricks that were made at Monticello. You can see the fingerprints of children, enslaved children, in those bricks of Monticello. It's really a way to kind of bring it to life.

2:56 So that's something that power of place is really important for us as educators and museum educators when we're thinking about students and teachers, and our virtual tours allow us to bring a little bit of that power of place to classrooms. So, we do virtual tours for students K through 12. And on that tour we actually have a guide leading them through the first floor of the house and they get to see the items and see some of the objects up close. So that is one way that we've tried to kind of bring that power to place to people that cannot actually come to Monticello. Oh, that is wonderful. The place-based learning is so important and I know it's a big theme here at Georgia Council of Social Studies, something they really want discussed and explored, and it's great that you're're part of that learning experience.

3:47 What are some things with Thomas Jefferson's life as a result of being in the museum, like you know, that juxtaposition or that irony of here. He speaks so much and is like the author of freedom in some ways. You know, as far as the ideals he had and yet I think he had so many I don't know the word almost tortured, thinking in terms of like he was trying to, I think, trying to figure out. He always had that contradiction in his life. And so what were some of the elements that brought that contradiction into focus for him? Perhaps I understand that. I think at the end of his life he freed the slaves he had, or maybe I'm wrong. Some. Okay, he only freed seven people. Oh, okay.

4:27 Yeah, so Thomas Jefferson. When he was younger he spoke out against slavery. He said it was an aberrant condition, it was a blot on society. But later in his life he really thought it was going to be a problem for our next generation to solve. You know, for him we don't know exactly. You know, we don't know exactly where he fell, other than what he wrote and the words that he wrote. But we do know that he enslaved over 600 people in his lifetime and at any given time there would have been 100 to 120 enslaved people living on the Monticello Mountain.

5:09 He did own other properties as well, but many of those people were members of the Hemings family. That was the largest enslaved family at Monticello during. Jefferson's retirement, but we also know that there were many other people that we don't know as much about. We know a lot about the Hemings family and some of the other enslaved families at Monticello because of not only Jefferson's meticulous record-keeping he kept records of all of his property, which included people but we also know a lot from the archaeology that we have done at Monticello to kind of reveal some of the lives of the enslaved people, including some of the sites where we believe there were cabins, enslaved dwellings and also oral histories.

5:58 We have an oral history project at Monticello called the Getting Word African American Oral History Project and it's been going on for 30 years now and it is where we talk to descendants of enslaved people who were enslaved at Monticello and we get their stories and you can find it online. A lot of the interviews are online as well. But it's really important to us to not only tell the story of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello but to tell the story of these people who basically made his lifestyle possible. The enslaved people were the ones that did pretty much everything at Monticello. So it's important to us and they're not. You know we say slavery is not a monolith.

6:39 These people had lives and faith and you know they resisted. We talk about the resiliency of people under this oppressive institution of slavery as well, and those stories I think are important to tell. Yes, certainly. Well, we appreciate that you're part of that journey for so many people and bringing that learning to life whether that's people actually being able to go there or being able to see it digitally and experience it that way and hopefully provide some revelation to people that they didn't have before so that's really really powerful work you're doing there, Melanie.

7:19 Thank you. So thank you so much. I wanted to ask one more question. Oh sure. So, associated with the Georgia Council of Social Studies, do you have a big takeaway from this conference or something that you feel is like this is quite a moment here that you have appreciated. Yeah, this is the first time we've been back to the conference post-COVID at Monticello, so I have been thrilled to be able to talk to Georgia teachers. We have a lot of overlap in what we offer and what they're teaching in the classroom, and just to have them come up to our exhibit table and tell us either like oh my gosh, I love Monticello, I've been there, or I want to go there. We do have a teacher fellowship too, so I got to plug that for our Georgia teachers.

8:03 So come on site and you can see us in the summertime. But it's just been really fun to reconnect, I guess, with teachers we haven't seen Wow. Well, thank you so much, Absolutely Again. This is Melanie Holland, with the Monticello Museum of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, and we're so happy that you were able to come today. Thank, you. Thank you Again. This is ABC Spotlight for Success and wishing you, Melanie, a great conference and a safe trip back home. Thank you, I appreciate it. Bye-bye.