Were at the rotunda at Thomas Jeffersons university of virginia. Up next, we take you to their special Collections Library to learn more about the jefferson papers. Jefferson is the founder of uva. He worked for many, many years to develop a system of education in virginia. Uva was his he said it was his last great project, which he did after he left the white house. He designed the buildings. He designed the curriculum. He served as the first rector of chair of the board of visitors he was intimately involved in details of the building. His vision was its a term that got thrown around today ofan academical vision. At the time a lot of the university basically consisted of one very big building where classes were held and there were dormitory rooms and things like that and jeffersons idea was to essentially make a village out of it, with the students living near the professors and classes being given in the professors homes and so there was all of this constant interaction of student and faculty plus its in charlottesville, in 1820s, a very small town, a village, really. So if you think about these amazing buildings that went up in the early 1820s sitting out is he thinks essentially in the middle of nowhere in virginia, it was part of his ideal of the United States is an egrarion society and the elite becoming the country and all of that sort of thing. While the University Archives are the historical of the university. They go back to actually long before the university was chartered by the state. That was in 1819 and it goes back to the institutions that preseeded uva. The archives are about 4 million items. Its the record of board of visitor, its the records of the president , the deans, the provost, the library, every fast set of the university of t the, its sound recordings and midge cal, email, website, digital. Everything thats a historical record of the university we try to capture. These are some of the very records, some that go back to 1817. This is a letter that jefferson wrote 1817 to william thornton, who was the man he assigned to work on the United StatesCapitol Building when he was president. So they were very good friends. And jefferson wrote to thornton about his ideas for the university in the middle he included a sketch of what he was thinking. An openended rectangle with pavelions, interspersed with dormitory rooms regularly and then an open area he says is grass and trees, no more detail than that. Its a basic part of the idea, but changed dramaically between the time he drew that sketch and the university was completed this was nine years after each of the buildings were taught by the classes there in the pavilion so they lived among the students and they were among the faculty and that was one of the ideas that the proximity would result in all kinds of educational and intellectual exchange. This is pavilion 7. This was a colonade and this was constructed before the university was chartered in 1819. This was one of jeffersons drawings like this, with an elevation and floor plans for each of the 10 pavelions. You can see he didnt quite get his scale right and had to glue on a small piece of paper to complete the chimney stack. I kind of like that, it makes him a little more human, i think, that he could actually make a mistake like that. And so, this is an example, the ground floor of thepavilion here is too large rooms. The upstairs and the cellar. This is the upstairs, the upstairs would be the living room for the family and the lower floor, the cellar was where the cooking happened and where some of the slaves who worked for the professors would have lived. Obviously, you can see its neo classical and he was very much interested in classical architecture. One of his big source books was the four books of architecture by andreas palatio. In addition to a book in english in 1721, and he used those to draw inspiration, especially for the pavelions, for the various pavelions. Each one is different. He wanted the university to be an open air classroom, even in its building. So you can walk around and see examples of classical architecture in the different orders of architecture. And different styles and features and that was very much a part of what he wanted to have happen. So the University Officially got off the ground in 1819 when they gave the university a charter and funding to continue building buildings, that was very critical, as it always is. And this is a ledger that was maintained by the proctor who was essentially the chief operating officer of the university. Its called a day book and in 18th century, 19th century accounting, essentially this is where you wrote down incoming and outgoing funds every day. And you would eventually transfer them officially to a ledger, you know, under the various funds, youd establish the balances, youd see all of that. The great thing about this is, proctor actually made note to himself about what some of these expenses were for. And so, if goes from, you know, things like a barrel of nails to, you know, 500 pounds of flour, to xnumber of board feet of lumber, hauling bricks and hauling earth and most importantly for uva, it shows you the source of the labor that was used to actually build the buildings. And here on this page, the proctor has recorded payments that were made to individuals for the hire of their slaves. And the slaves were actually named. You can see here is payment for his tom, thats the name of a slave, and then barrett, and george. So, we know who the individuals were and what the name of the slave was who was hired to work here at uva. And this goes on and on and on throughout the years of construction. Its been identified that probably overall, there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 75 uniquely named slaves. Theres sometimes when were not sure if the same slave with the same name is the same person. And of course, not every slave was hired for the duration. It was common that a slave hire was done for a year and that on the new year, the new contract would be offered to the owner and it would be renegotiated. I suspect a lot of this was done on a monthly or a daily or even a weekly basis, with the owners. Now, if you finished moving earth for the terraces, you dont need as much labor so you can send them back to their owner to work. On the other hand, if you have someone who is a skilled carpenter, perhaps, or killed at making brick, you might need them for much longer. Of course, this is the rotunda. It is probably the most iconic building of the university, i think its what everybody thinks about when they think of uv ach uva. It is based on the model of the pantheon in rome and its a model that jefferson adapted from the palatio volumes that i mentioned. We always like to point out in the lower corner, he says its the library, which of course, it was. And it was the library from when it opened in 1826 until 1938. And were always very proud of that. It serveds a the library in a classroom building. There was a Chemistry Lab in the basement. There were classrooms, there were meeting rooms, it was the center of university life. Its changed dramatically in the 20th century. As i said, it was the library until 1938 and then, a new main library, alderman library, which is adjacent to this building was built and the rotunda was then used as an event base and for offices and essentially from about world war ii until very recently, there was not a lot of assigned activity to the rotunda. It was more of a ceremonial space. And students could actually go here there four years without ever having to go into the rotunda. Which didnt really seem like quite the right thing and so, recently, the rotunda has undergone about two years worth of repair and renovation, and with an eye specifically to making it more accessible and more appealing to students to use, to study in the dome room, to study in the other rooms and have it open later at night, have spaces that more classes can meet. So, theyre trying really hard and i think its a great idea to bring it back to the center of academic life and not just have it as a big monument sitting at the head of the lawn. I think theres no question that jefferson would be astonished about uva today. Sheerly from size alone, i mean, if you think about the size of the original buildings versus what exists now at uva, its immense. The student body is enormous. Before the civil war, i believe the highest enrollment uva had was Something Like 800 students, you know. Now were in the tens of thousands of students. Obviously other things would astonish him would be the fact that women are being educated at uva, and africanamericans are being educated at uva, and students from all around the world are being educated at uva. And yet, theres still a great deal about his original vision that has survived. And i think that is probably as astonishing as anything. Behind me are statues of the third, fourth and fifth president s of the United States. Thomas jefferson, James Madison and james monroe. 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