Monticello Podcasts

One scholar writes, "In another moment of history, they might never have met." For today's episode, we examine the brief, yet important relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who came from two different worlds and generations, yet helped forge a new nation together.

Welcome to A Rich Spot of Earth! Monticello's podcast about Thomas Jefferson, gardening, and the natural world. In this inaugural episode, Monticello's gardeners and groundskeepers look at seeds — one of the most elemental building blocks of the garden — and seed saving, while sharing stories, tips, and techniques from Jefferson's time and our own. Featuring Jason Young, Manager and Curator of His...

In October 1825, artist John Browere came to Monticello to cast a life mask of Thomas Jefferson. What transpired was written about by members of the Jefferson-Randolph family, members of Monticello’s enslaved community, and was even published in national newspapers.

During the early years of the United States, the country faced significant challenges involving foreign powers. One of the most concerning was the impressment of American citizens into British naval service. Thomas Jefferson believed it could lead to war.

For many Americans, the name Sacajawea brings to mind thoughts of exploration and discovery. Monticello's Olivia Brown looks at the myths and realities of the life of this famous Native American woman who played an unlikely but critical role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Was it a relaxing retreat? A working vacation? Or a merely intriguing story that it is really more about how we like to view U.S. history than what actually happened? In this episode of In the Course of Human Events, Frank Cogliano, a professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, shares an oft-repeated story about a fishing trip taken by George Washington the summer of 17...

"This place we have named Fort Mandan in honour of our Neighbours," wrote Meriwether Lewis. In this podcast episode, we focus on an important chapter during the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition, and their interactions with the nearby Mandan and Hidatsa communities.

Everyone knows the Lewis and Clark Expedition. But it wasn't the first expedition to explore the American West that Jefferson promoted or devised. And it wasn't the last. This week, Monticello guides Olivia Brown and Mikey Amos look as those other, often ill-fated explorations.

Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson argued that knowledge was power. Many, however, have faced challenges in receiving an education in this country since its founding. For the holiday season, this podcast episode focuses on a few stories about individuals who strove to access and share with others the gift of education.

He challenged President Washington’s authority. He lied to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. He defied American directives and outfitted privateer ships in U.S. ports and sent them to attack British shipping. He was a diplomat who was almost anything but diplomatic. Meet Edmound Charles Genet, the French envoy who nearly brought the young United States back into a war with Great Britain. In thi...

For the holiday season, Monticello guide Kyle Chattleton dispels a myth involving Benjamin Franklin and dives into the more complicated history surrounding it.

Music was an important part of life for enslaved people at Monticello and particular individuals within the enslaved community were noted for their artistic talents. Monticello guide and recently minted Ph. D. in Musicology, Kyle Chattleton looks at the ways enslaved people at plantations across the United States used music and at the foundational role they played in creating a distinctly American...

In 1773 Thomas Jefferson purchased an enslaved family of three - George, Ursula, and their young son George, Jr. - and brought them to work at Monticello. The Grangers, their children, and their grandchildren would go on to include community leaders, skilled tradesmen, cooks, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, farmers, and cider-makers as well as caring spouses, parents, children, and siblings.

In the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson and much of the country faced a significant crisis caused by a tiny insect. Monticello Guide Kyle Chattleton reads from an article prepared in 1991 by Lucia "Cinder" Stanton, Monticello's Shannon Senior Historian, focusing on the infamous Hessian fly.

Monticello guide Olivia Brown looks at Thomas Jefferson's earliest education and his lifelong promotion of learning, including his efforts to establish a system of public schools and the founding of the University of Virginia

Monticello historian Niya Bates describes the Getting Word African American Oral History Project and how it has helped transform interpretive experience at Monticello since its inception in 1993.

It began in the chimney of the North Pavilion, as one family member recalled. It was a windy spring day in central Virginia. The year was 1819.

Thomas Jefferson’s Cabinet was a personal office space where he wrote his letters, read books, and engaged in scientific pursuits. In this segment, Mikey Amos explores the many curiosities of this space, including the polygraph. He also discusses what Jefferson’s time in this room might have looked like during his retirement years, as well as his never-ending search for knowledge. (Rebroadcast fro...

Monticello guide Kyle Chattleton explores how plants and gardens animated a friendship between two individuals oftentimes separated by an ocean, revolution, and politics.

On April 13, 1909, Maud Littleton, wife of a well known New York attorney and politician, fulfilled a life-long desire to visit Monticello. Despite a "kind and hospitable" reception by the house's then-owner Jefferson Monroe Levy, Littleton was not impressed and shortly after launched a years-long public campaign first to purchase and then to wrest Monticello from Levy, whose family had owned and...

Monticello guide Justin Bates discusses Jefferson's interest in the Louisiana Territory, his hopes for an "Empire of Liberty" across the North American continent, and the Purchase's lasting legacies for the United States and for the indigenous nations that existed prior to the arrival Europeans.

Monticello guide Olivia Brown looks at the life and controversial career of partisan journalist and political writer James Callender, who famously turned on his one-time political patron, Thomas Jefferson.

Monticello guide Ariel Armenta explores Thomas Jefferson’s intentions for the Corps of Discovery and Merriwether Lewis’s preparations. She also focuses on the diverse character of this Corps, and the Expedition's lasting scientific impacts.

In the late 1780s, Jefferson witnessed first-hand the beginnings of the French Revolution and what would become the eventual overthrow of King Louis XVI and the French monarchy. Monticello Guide Olivia Brown looks at Jefferson's reaction to this momentous event and the small but significant role he played in it.

For this July 4th weekend, as we begin to approach 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, we take a look a the the group of the five delegates from five colonies—John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia—selected to write and edit this important...