Youtube special in and a special welcome to our cspan audience. Before we get to todays discussion i would like to let you know about two programs coming up soon. On friday that were 16th at noon professors chris my wrist and George Derek Musgrove will be here to talk about a tumultuous four century story of race and democracy in washington d. C. Yesterday that the soft served as a National Battleground for contentious issues including segregation and civil rights of the drug war. After a twoyear absence from public view abraham lincolns original proclamation will be on display in the east rotunda gallery during president s day weekend. Dont miss this rare pretended to see the original emancipation proclamation. The document will be made available for viewing on february 17 come 18th and 19th between the hours of 10 00 and 5 30 h. Day three to learn more about these and other Public Programs and exhibits consult our calendar of events on line at archives. Gov. Theres a table outside where you can sign up to receive email updates. Another way to get involved in the National Archives is to become member with the National Archives sunday should be the Foundation Supports all of our education and outreach activities. Todays Program Takes a close look at Thomas Jeffersons three daughters martha and Mariah Jefferson and Harriet Hemings and the life of Thomas Jefferson through their ice. Author catherine researching their lives using primary sources including court cases and records of the District Courts of the United States in ebooks in the records of the government of the district of columbia here at the National Archives. Previous accounts about the hemings family authors such as nick gordon reed. For the first time in jeffersons three daughters a New York Times book review right harrisons beautifully written book takes the relationships that distance. At Christian Science monitor review, jeffersons daughters brings its period vividly to life the credit to the exhaustive researcher passion for her subject and eloquent writing. She teaches courses in colonial and revolutionary american womens gender history could show the ph. D. In American History from the college of william and mary. Shes author of several scholarly articles into books and presented her work in comfort is in the United States and abroad. In the course of her research she is one grants and fellowships for more essays and such is the National Endowment for the amenities the williamsburg humanities the waynesburg society. The first book claiming the pen and intellectual life in the early American South won the outstanding book award from the history of Education Society in 2007. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome catherine garrison. [applause] good afternoon and thank you so much for being here. I cant tell you what a pleasure it is for me and how exciting it is for me to be back in washington where i have spent so much of my research to be back in this building where i have spent weeks working on this project. Its wonderful to be here and thank you for coming. So i thought what i would do today is to present the first a very brief overview of the book and then what i wont do is zero and on two of the stories that i didnt really ring out in the book and why i think the stories matter for today. Thomas jefferson has three daughters martha more than mariah by his wife martha wells jefferson and harriet by Sally Hemings. In jeffersons daughters i recount the journeys of these three very different women and how their struggle to define themselves reflect both the possibility and the limitations of the American Revolution. As the women shared the same author at commonalities and fair fair. More than mariah received a fine education during their fathers diplomatic post and at that time paris was a hot house of intellectual who celebrated. A young Martha Jefferson met and socialize with. The sisters found their Options Limited by the laws and customs in the newly independent covenant that their father himself had helped to establish. 12 years after their return from france their halfsister Harriet Hemings was worn and her life would follow a very different path. She would grow up in slavery but leave monticello at age 21 with the assistance of jefferson himself and began a new life free from bondage. She boarded a bound for philadelphia with 50 in her pocket and four decidedly uncertain prospects. Their lives provide a think a unique Vantage Point from which to examine the complicated legacy of the American Revolution itself and i wrote this book to show how their richly over woven stories shed new light on the challenges we still face in this nation today for the Ongoing Movement towards human rights as well as the light it sheds on the personal and political legacy of one of our most controversial founding fathers. So today i thought i would open up the story of martha, the oldest and harriet, the youngest youngest. Born in 1772 was 10 years old when her mother died. She was a witness to jeffersons companion when he traveled to france in 1784 so the young martha learned early in life complete devotion to her father. She was barely 12 years old when her father placed her in an elite convent school. There is one view from the courtyard and just a partial view. This entire building is the length of two football fields so it gives you an idea of the size. So this is again from the inner courtyard and martha the day that her father dropped her off at this school, they would have ventured through doors that are concealed behind this bush but mother superiors offices were up here and theres the gorgeous staircase that takes you to the mother superiors office. This is from the street view, not quite as impressive but this is the Roman Catholic chapel and which martha would attend services. It was one of the most fashionable schools in paris and the most expensive. They are an allfemale community headed by the aristocratic and devoted to the girls life martha would have experience of a lifetime. She quickly learned french, dove into her studies and gossip with friends and the chaperoned pleasures of life in paris at the height of the womens influence. Remember they arrived in paris in august of 1784. They leave in september of 1789 so two months to the crowd stormed the gates of the bastille. She gossiped about politics, ideas about love and marriage and a wayward classmates who quote told me today of her in the eton boys wanted their confidence confessed really shocked me. Deep thoughts and small preoccupied her. She desperately wished that slavery would cease. She implored her father for an advance on her allowance. Her lively intelligence and by cassidy won her many friends. The portrait of a young girl painted with her vivid memory bounding down the stairs for steps at a time in her coffee stained apron reporting on the shifting alliances as students moved in and out of the convent school. Receiving a salute as he entered paris to quell revolutionary unrest. All of these really are a contrast with the stately portrait of the matron. This portrait was done in philadelphia about a year and a half before she died. Years later she would regale her children with stories and remark repeatedly that they were the happiest years of her life. It was an experience im convinced that shaped her vision of female education for her own daughters a vision that deviated markedly from that which her father had upon her. Before her departure for france martha followed the traditional curriculum for elite girls in 18th Century America music, dancing a bit of reading and writing. This Jefferson Jefferson said would be sufficient preparation for protecting your family fortune. Things were different. There are martha was interested in jack a free history arithmetic and modern languages. She lived deeply in French Literature attended the oprah the theater socialized at the palace royale. This is a print from 1784. It was so named because one of the kings relatives found that he couldnt afford to live in it it. Then enclose it in one of the most beautiful places in paris and then within all these with shops and restaurants. This is the place to go in paris particularly on sunday. She made friends with the french aristocracy and the english diplomats. After a time she was indistinguishable. When her sponsor their which you need a reference to get in, not recognizing on the playground one day who she was she replied she is a very distinguished air. One of her english friends even called her your ladyship. This young growth had come a long way after five years of schooling. Thats probably why jefferson before she could be swept off her feet like a young french aristocrat. She was 17 when they returned to monticello in 1789. Two months later she married thomas randolph. After her glory years in paris martha tried to make the most of the isolation as a virginia planters wife. Over the course of 28 years she bore 11 surviving children. At jeffersons retirement in 1999 she moved back to monticello to live with him and devoted herself to his comfort. She identified with his intellectual life with the pursuit of the life of the mind and she devoted herself to educating her children and particularly her daughters to do the same. So how might education be reenvisioned in the early republic particularly when one has enjoyed the advantage is of the best allfemale academy in paris and when one is the daughter of one of the chief architects of the american republic. But started to be the challenge was to architecture that monticello suggests. This photo im sure many of you have seen. This is taken from jeffersons library looking through another round and then into his cabinet into a his study. Jefferson became very enamored of the idea of a when he was in europe. So compare this three room apartment devoted to monticello. With this room that is not quite 15 feet square where martha managed the household gave directions to slaves and taught her own 11 children. But marthas daughters give us the best sense of the complex ways of martha and her daughters tried to answer that question about female education and refuse to be bound by the gender limitations. In their letters we can see both marthas lofty dreams to give her daughters the finest education in america, that is to teach them that women do where rational angst who could strive. Against those lofty dreams were the earthly realities and this is really clear in their laments about the wasted time spent carrying a cheese in their words. That is when it was their turn to manage the monthly housekeeping chores. Marthas daughter in virginia could find time to write to her sister after one of the most troublesome months of housekeeping i ever had. She carried the keys. Cornelia the most artistic of marthas daughters remind her quote books covered with unmolested dust and doors locked and never opened. We see dreams and reality in the search for a quiet place to read it on a cello which of course during jeffersons retirement became a magnet for all manner of invited and otherwise. Virginia is seeking out a place where visitors wouldnt find her. She climbs up to the dorm room. When you open that door theres a threefoot drop into this attic space. So she talks about converting this attic space that she shared to a room of her own. A couple of cushions and a couple of castoff chairs and a table it was for her a palace. This is her palace. Monticello has since furnished with some furnishings to try to imagine what she might have done done. She didnt intend to yield to anything except perhaps the formidable rats that she occasionally cited. The influence in her daughters curriculum is. Martha had learned french spanish and italian but she wouldnt deprive for girls of latin just because they were not male and its through her daughters letters that we can see this. When she was 23 lm recalled her visits to her grandfathers retreat in the forest and hear she ambled from room to room with savoring memories of when she had been able to spend seven to eight under drafted hours on their latin. Allen swore i would never again tolerated translation. The difference between the original and john drydens translation she likened to that between a class of rich high flavor to whine and the same wine thrown into accord duck water. Indeed trips and i have to contrast again jefferson does the same thing in Poplar Forest that he does it marchella which is to say though this room here is south facing and gets gorgeous sunlight the girl shared a bedroom on the east facing side. Here is chairpersons sunday reading room. The trips to poplar farms were the closest that marthas daughters would come to realizing what they would dream of the 1929. A place into which the world is doing with its demands on women could not intrude a place for the intellectual life. Martha had attempted to widen considerably the founders of female education and jeffersons perfect confidence in her ability to educate herself in the privacy of his own home would certainly justify the admiration and praise of all of the visitors to monticello. But lacking any public expression of what could Martha Jefferson randolph hope leave for the world . Very little her daughter ellen said tearfully just three years after martha died in 1836. She has passed away. She is left in the recollection of her friends and the hearts of her children. A few short years and perhaps all records and all remembrance of her name and her qualities will be gone. For all that Martha Jefferson randolph was, for all her learning and all that was within herself she was invisible to the world. Her brilliance confined to the 15 squarefoot sitting room that her father had designed. Martha was left destitute. Your education, brilliant minded manner and her famous connections all insufficient defenses against the vagaries. Her story serves as a cautionary tale today i think of the benefits and the perils for women of relying on men even wealthy, wellintentioned men for their lifes meaning and livelihood. Ultimately martha could not and did not regret the roll into which she was born. Harriet hemings who was born in 1801 did and she reinvented herself on the best plan that she could as a freeborn white women and her story opened up an entirely different avenue of investigation and narrative. I just want to show you a much simplified family tree. Here is john wiles at the top of it. He marries wife number one. They have a daughter, martha. As an adult martha marys Thomas Jefferson and martha and mary later called mariah. After john wiles third wife died he begins a relationship with his slave Elizabeth Hemings who in fact have been brought to his household. They have six Children Together beyond the stuff home with Sally Hemings worn in 1773 the year that john wales died. Two things worth noticing here. First of all that jeffersons wife and Sally Hemings have the same father, john wales. The other thing to note is jeffersons daughter martha and Sally Hemings born within a year of each other so they will be going through their childbearing years together at monticello. Okay, so we dont know exactly when Harriet Hemings left monticello. Certainly by the end of may, 1822 when she turned 21 years old. We do know there was quite a stir in the little town of charlottesville. There is a great deal of talk about it. People said he freed her because she was his own daughter. From Courthouse Square were harriet had come from washington you can easily see jefferson atop his little mountain. There on the square under their peach brandys the tourist people had freely discussed among themselves and with strangers relations with Sally Hemings and the children that looks so much like him. Now they animatedly started to ask why jefferson would free Harriet Hemings. Everyone knew as jefferson himself had once said that quote a slave woman who brings a child is more profitable than the best man on the farm. Certainly jefferson had never done such a thing before or why he never did it again. Story might well have ended there had it not been for her younger brother madison who told the family story to an ohio newspaper in 1873, so just over 50 years after harriet left monticello. Somewhere along that road north to washington harriet discovered her enslaved identity for that of a freeborn white woman. She was and you can sort of do the rough math. I am an historian and i dont get that as she was the eighth wife. It was a declaration of independence of such breathtaking scope as to rival that of her fathers and hers to was successful. This was her likely arrival point. Jesse browns famous hotel on pennsylvania avenue. It boasted the largest Assembly Room in the city of fine restaurants and it was the tusseling depot stop. Madison reported that harriet quote married a white man in Good Standing in Washington City and raised a family of children. She likely lived until at least 1863 for in 1873 when madison was telling the family story he said he had not heard him her in about 10 years that during all o