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April 24, 2006
Historian to Give Annual Jefferson lecture at William Paterson University
Lucia Stanton, the Shannon Senior Historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies in Monticello, Virginia, will present the 22nd Annual Abram Kartch/Thomas Jefferson Lecture at William Paterson University in Wayne on Wednesday, May 3, 2006.
More than 400 students from area high schools are expected to attend Stanton’s address, titled “Slavery at Monticello,” which will begin at 9:45 a.m. in Shea Center on campus. A limited number of seats for the free program will be available to the public.
Stanton has studied Jefferson’s Monticello plantation and its African American community since her arrival there nearly 30 years ago. One of the most scholarly authorities on this subject, she is the author of Slavery at Monticello and Free Some Day: The African American Families of Monticello, a biographical account of six such enslaved families. Responsible for other advanced research and writing projects, she is the author or co-editor of more than ten titles on Jefferson, including Thomas Jefferson’s Memorandum Books 1767-1826, a sixty-year record of his daily expenditures. Stanton is currently engaged in an oral history project to recover as much information as possible about Jefferson’s slaves and their descendants.
The Abram Kartch/Thomas Jefferson Lecture Series began in 1985 after Abram Kartch, a retired Paterson businessman and Jefferson scholar, provided William Paterson with an endowment to establish and continue the series. Designed to provoke discussion about the relationship of Jefferson’s words and thoughts to modern society, the series has presented lectures by many of the country’s leading Jefferson scholars, including Henry Steele Commager, James B. Shenton, Jan Lewis and Pauline Maier. Kartch, who in later years resided in Wayne, died in 1997 at age 93.
An essay contest for high school and college students will be conducted by the University in connection with the lecture. Certificates and monetary prizes will be awarded to students who write the two best essays on the theme developed in Stanton’s lecture.
The essays will be judged by Richard Kearney, William Paterson University Library; and George Robb and Lucia McMahon, William Paterson University department of history. Winners will be announced by June 5 and their winning papers will be placed on file in the University library. Their names will be engraved on twin plaques kept by their schools for the next year.
For additional information about the event, contact George Robb, William Paterson University associate professor of history, at 973-720-3058.
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www.wpunj.edu
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