After Jefferson came home to Monticello from the White House in 1809, he began designing the first secular, public University in the state. Ground was broken for the University of Virginia in 1819. The University’s planning and architecture show us what culture is being celebrated.
As the University was being constructed, fifty-four percent of the residents of the geographically large county were enslaved people. Indeed, enslaved laborers represented a significant part of the construction workforce.
The University opened to forty students in 1825. These students were young white men, mostly sons of wealthy landholders from southern, slave-owning families during the pre-Civil-War years. It would be 125 years before the University would admit a black student.
Plans for the Rotunda, which Jefferson based on Rome’s Pantheon, date to 1821 with construction completed shortly before Jefferson’s death in 1826, although there were many modifications, repairs, and additions to the building. An 1895 fire burned the Rotunda (and the annex), which was rebuilt a few years later and then ultimately restored in the 20th century to reflect Jefferson’s original design, in time for the 1976 bicentennial.
In 2007, the Board of Visitors passed a resolution expressing regret for the school’s use of slaves and the University installed a (hard-to-find) memorial plaque at the west entrance floor to the Rotunda hallway.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers began with a student-led effort in 2010 and was completed in 2020.
