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A new view: Hustle and bustle of plantation life focus of new history series at Monticello

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You think Monticello, and you think, Plantation, quiet life, gardens, beautiful views. You don’t necessarily think, Industry and commerce center.

“Right now, if you walk along Mulberry Row, the main street through Monticello, it’s very tranquil, very beautiful. But during Jefferson’s time, it would actually have been a bustling city road,” said Lisa Stites, a marketing specialist at the historic home of the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, in Albemarle County.

A new interpretive series at Monticello, Mulberry Row: Monticello’s Main Street, will highlight the hustle and bustle of Jefferson’s time. The four-part series begins in June with a look at African-American gardens and foodways at Monticello.

As the series gets under way, archaeologists and curators at Monticello are finishing up work that will help flesh out that view of Monticello that will give visitors perhaps a different view of life in the 18th and 19th century than we’ve had.

“That traditional view – yes, it’s gorgeous here. The vegetable gardens, the vistas. You can’t take that away. But we also want to give people the full experience of what life was like here,” Stites said.