he was invited back to monticello. so by this time, you know, the jeffersons had long since lost the house the levy family a jewish family. that was very inspired by jefferson's commitment to religious freedom. they had bought it and they welcomed peter fawcett back. back home, so he had left auctioned off from the west lawn of monticello, and he walked back in as an old man through the front steps. so so the you know, the journeys brought me to many different places both in europe in my mind and considering this this man who had once been my hero, but i now saw more critically. but but at the end i think it left me, you know, very enriched. it definitely definitely thinking that you know, we do need to remember jefferson and along with all these other people at the mountain, you know on monticello mountain. it's a way of remembering this whole time period that we all share in our history as americans. and and it's still left me with many stories of jefferson. that i still that i still enjoyed and and looked at despite

and i'm going to start with gary if i can, and i don't know, how many of you have been to monticello before? so it exhausts me when i go and see what president jefferson did. i mean i'm always so -- i'm excited to see what gary is doing now to see how he's turning that into a digital asset. so i think we like everybody else had to make this pivot and scramble to see how we kept relevant content. at first it was just let's get something online. you know we built a website in 1997, the first year we had online presence and as many of you in this field know, for a long time, there was a decade probably a back and forth about in the museum well does building a website prevent people from visiting, that kind of argument went on a while, seemed to really be a lot of evidence to that and now digital is so ubiquitous, went from secondary to us to primary and began to think about who these audiences are, this is always, there is no such thing as a general audience, there just isn't. right. we have constituencies and some make up the bulk of our, the people engaged with us as opposed to other

sandling vice president of strategy and chief content officer of the thomas jefferson foundation in monticello. enjoy the discussion of history in technology as well as different digital platforms we used to make our past more accessible and readily available to you all. thank you. [applause] >> good morning everyone already in exciting day, love the panels, how many got here early? did you go last night to the panel of, oh my gosh wasn't unbelievable? so inspiring. [applause] i just went home last night back to the room with my head spinning on what these individuals had done and then we got to look across 40 years of presidential information from the chiefs of staff. it was unbelievable. so, i hope you enjoy our panel today it's about making history accessible through technology, which is near and dear to my heart. being a technology executive for the last 23 years. in this session we're gonna explore innovative ways that presidential sites, libraries can incorporate having to cutting edge technology. if you think about what happened during covid, it's even more important that we allow acces

personally for me at monticello isn't anything to do with jefferson. actually, it's a it's a piece of chinking that came from that was archaeologically excavated long ago. i think in the 80s so so clay place between logs in a house, you know to seal it up and you can see the fingerprints. of the person who put it there. wow, right and that's been exhibited, but we have 3d up. we've made 3d models of yes for example to use an exhibition so that the original doesn't have to be and you wouldn't know it. i mean unless you could compare, you know by touching the objects so for certain things like that having having partners who particularly in academia, i think is really helpful, but honestly for us we're still we're still pretty small scale. yeah, we're not you know, i mean, this is a question. we still i don't think you know beyond finding those partners we had to develop a lot of it in-house so i created the first manager of digital learning at monticello into the position in 2014. and that took a while and that was from someone who who had worked within

they were always going to monticello. no cars going there. hardly any cars going into ash lawn growing up. sarah found the real house which kind of, in my mind, symbolizes the beginning of an authentic history at that place. and that included my cousin, george, showing up there saying, you know -- you know -- i think the article. let me back up. the article, i think, talked about not really having any slaves -- any enslaved descendants in the area. george shows up to say there's huge family of monroes that settled here, and we're still here. that was the first engagement with what became highland. also sarah worked to rename it james monroe's highland which is what it was called. that's the start of getting it right. and what that included was engagement with the monroe family of enslaved -- descendants of the enslaved there. any great great grandfather was edward ned monroe. he bought about 52 acres outside of the -- probably about 7, 8 miles from highland. and it's still in our family. we still own it. i'm probably all over place here but i

they were always going to monticello. no bus is going there. no hardly any cars going into ashland growing up. sarah found the real house, which kind of in my mind symbolizes the beginning of an authentic history. at that place and that included my cousin. i'm george up there saying you know, you know, i think the only back up the article i think talked about not really having any any slave any enslaved descendants in the area and george showed up there to say. no there's a huge family of monroe's that settled here and we're still here and that was the first engagement with with what became highland also it sarah worked to cerebral and harper work to rename it james monroe highland, which is what it was called. so that's the start of getting it right and what that included was. engagement with the monroe family of enslaved descendants of the enslaved. they are my great great grandfather was ned edward ned monroe and he bought about 52 acres outside of the probably about seven eight miles from from highland and and it's still in our family we st

gary if i cannon, i don't know how many of you have been to monticello before have you been? so it exhausts me when i go and see what president jefferson did. i mean, i'm always so tired. so i'm really excited to hear what gary's doing now to turn all that into a digital asset. well, yeah, i think we you know, like everyone else we had to make this kind of pivot and scramble to think about how we kept relevant content and we start so at first it was let's just let's get something, you know online. we you know, we built a website in 1997. i think was the first year that we had an online presence and as many of you been in this field probably know for a long time there was probably for a decade there was a lot of back and forth in the museum feel about we'll just building a website prevent people from visiting. you know, that kind of argument went on for a while. there's really seem to be a lot of evidence to that a fact and now of course digital so ubiquitous. it's an engagement tool and it went from being maybe secondary for us to primary and we began to think about who these

david is in monticello, georgia, on the no line, too. you are not willing to put a mask back on, huh? caller: no, i am not. i am an electrician, and we have an medication team that did at one time recommend masks. however, i am in an industry where i have been exposed to a lot of toxic chemical. we had to try everything through the years to keep ourselves safe and not have long-term effects from what we are exposed to. i have been a safety manager, social director, and our primary focus for safety in our industry is protection. so i had to dive into it from safety protocols. but one class that i took really opened my eyes several years ago. what we were dealing with becomes atomized and the masks we are using, we tried n95 and all of them, and very expensive sometimes, nothing helped. nothing was safe. and we went to a lot of respirators with charcoal filters. well, they did not help either in some situations. in studying it, one thing we recognized is every one of these packs or boxes of masks says not to be considered protection, as it

we really never did i really pay attention to it even visiting monticello. going past ash lawn weekly. my mother is 82. we started engagement five years ago. the first time she came on property, and same for me, when we engaged on the council. when we started meeting there. my mother, i watched her as we drove up this -- i don't know if you've been there but the driveway is lined with these gigantic, beautiful trees. the field is cleared and it's beautiful. she just looked across and said, i wonder what our people thought when they were here. i knew exactly what she meant. it's good to be here to tell the story. there's a lot of emotion tied to it. >> i heard two points of perspective. one is about the power of stories and the need to have representation and the way that we interpret history. i also heard the importance of having descendant reputation and this idea of structural parity, co-equal stewardship. what are some lessons learned in the engagement of descendant or an equitiable interpretation of history. some of the other work is fairly new. what wou

i mean if you if you didn't know thomas jefferson owned monticello, you'd think that he would be begging outside the tavern every single night for a meal. why were these? owners these plantation owners these these founders so cash poor well, they lived harvest to harvest. and there was such things as bad years as in any farmers life. and they lived according to the ideas of the british what they were going to pay for that year's crop. there was no gold or silver. there was no money. you could borrow from a bank thomas jefferson took 54 years and probably the longest home improvement project in history to finish monticello because he could never get enough money to do it at once but that was also that's that's taking a light view of it. he was an absolute. compulsive shopper who just kept spending and spending and they also he had the idea that if the british were going to rip him off he was going to rip them off so he didn't he didn't put spend much time or money paying off his debts to england. he rationalized. he he rationalized everything including his debts. there is a founding fathe

i mean if you if you didn't know thomas jefferson owned monticello, you'd think that he would be begging outside the tavern every single night for a meal. why were these? owners these plantation owners these these founders so cash poor well, they lived harvest to harvest. and there was such things as bad years as in any farmers life. and they lived according to the ideas of the british what they were going to pay for that year's crop. there was no gold or silver. there was no money. you could borrow from a bank thomas jefferson took 54 years and probably the longest home improvement project in history to finish monticello because he could never get enough money to do it at once but that was also that's that's taking a light view of it. he was an absolute. compulsive shopper who just kept spending and spending and they also he had the idea that if the british were going to rip him off he was going to rip them off so he didn't he didn't put spend much time or money paying off his debts to england. he rationalized. he he rationalized everything including his debts. there is a founding fathe

. >> that's right, i was just at monticello. >> we are not erasing thomas jefferson from our history. >> there is an issue, who gets to decide who is argued and,. that's our next topic. when you appeared on "history as it happens" podcast fairly recently, in july, around the fourth anniversary of the unite the right rally, confederate statues came down -- it was in august, i take that back, confederate statues were taken down in charlottesville, generals lee and jackson, and our discussion was why certain narratives gain ascendancy and why we today believe certain narratives or believe a certain version of history instead of, say, a different or a more complete or a revised version. and i think the issue of the confederate statues is arguably the best one, because, you know, as a yankee myself, moved down to washington, i'm a mets fan but i am from the north, i'm a yankee, i guess, moved down to washington, dc a decade ago and i noticed over the river in alexandria there were still streets and roads named after confederates, and i never thought about it much, why that would be the cas

and your people are from monticello, by the way, so my people my great-great-grandmother was lorena mackey who grew up. i've just found out we probably related. um in the same in the same town and jarvis you think about already too but i want you to do something for me when you when you go through the colic we ever remember and who the great civil rights leaders of all time run through that list that you have. so people that's a good question. so people are sometimes when i talk about the mountain rushmore and we should probably shouldn't do this, but who cares? no, we're gonna do it. yeah when i try the mount rushmore like civil rights leaders and icons. i always start with fannie lou hamer in ella baker. right, true that right. so that and who else that that kind of probably puts you in some mind state or mind frame of where i come from. i add stokely i think that asokie carmichael, of course, i think that one of the greatest politician civil rights heroes of all time is probably julian bond. uncle julian was was absolutely everything and with all due respect. i know that marks and was i

and also grabbing him and his ap colleague, a man named john monticello, a another prize winning ap photojournalist. they at one point threw him off the railing, mr. mitchell, oh off of the railing of the capitol. i am going to show you some seconds of this video. if you have kids with you who you don't want to see real world violence, this is a warning to you that maybe should be distracting them for about 45 seconds or so. because we are going to show you that tape, right now. >> bleep -- >> we are coming for you! [inaudible] >> bleep! >> bleep! >> get -- out of here! >> hey! >> get out of here! [inaudible] >> get the bleep out of here! >> get the bleep out! bleep! [inaudible] bleep. >> that is ap photographer john montebello being menaced and thrown over the radio. his colleague, julia cortez, being attacked alongside and those men are both pulitzer prize-winning ap photojournalists. incredible, right? lucky to get away with their lives that day, when the trump supporters attacking the capitol decided they would set upon them. you can see that they are press. you can clearly see, mr. manchin low

smith and goola monticello, do you think you changed maybe just one person's perspective unless you start with your book. you know, it's it's been interesting to me. there's there's been a sort of acknowledgment that yeah, i knew that there was inequality in higher. this is a company that i was i've known that that things were bad. but i didn't know how bad they were on purpose. is it you or people here? this is people that were people say to you. yes, of course paraphrase, but how bad they were on purpose right the fact that by in you know, the mid 1900s kentucky's doing this big study to understand how underfunded kentucky what would become kentucky state university is and by the 1940s kentucky has the worst appropriation between black and white institutions at 42 to 1, right and the fact that they had known about that for at least three decades at that point. so i think that understanding a new has has. i think that that has happened and people have have told me that that has happened. so it is it is nice to know that it is at least changing people's understanding of what higher educat

david is in monticello, georgia, on the no line, too. you are not willing to put a mask back on, huh? caller: no, i am not. i am an electrician, and we have an medication team that did at one time recommend masks. however, i am in an industry where i have been exposed to a lot of toxic chemical. we had to try everything through the years to keep ourselves safe and not have long-term effects from what we are exposed to. i have been a safety manager, social director, and our primary focus for safety in our industry is protection. so i had to dive into it from safety protocols. but one class that i took really opened my eyes several years ago. what we were dealing with becomes atomized and the masks we are using, we tried n95 and all of them, and very expensive sometimes, nothing helped. nothing was safe. and we went to a lot of respirators with charcoal filters. well, they did not help either in some situations. in studying it, one thing we recognized is every one of these packs or boxes of masks says not to be considered protection, as it