#1226 American Happiness

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2017

⏱️ 65 minutes

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Summary

"You can't understand Jefferson without understanding slavery; you can't understand the paradox of his life and the words that he wrote in the Declaration of Independence without understanding this historical connection with Sally Hemings and with the enslaved people in general at Monticello."

— Niya Bates, Public Historian of Slavery and African American Life at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation

A variety of subjects are covered on the Thomas Jefferson Hour this week, including a discussion about Benjamin Franklin Bache's newspaper the Philadelphia Aurora, the effect negative press had on politicians during Jefferson's time and an interview with Niya Bates about restoration work ongoing at Monticello.

You can find a full transcript of our conversation with Niya Bates here.

Find this episode, along with further recommended reading, on the blog.

Learn more about Odyssey Tours and the summer 2017 Lewis & Clark adventure on odytours.net.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, podcast listeners. I believe it's show 1226 American happiness.
0:05.8	Whether we can be politically happy.
0:08.0	Personal happiness is one thing.
0:10.0	Political happiness is different.
0:11.6	A big part of the show was talking with Naya Bates about what's going on there in the
0:16.7	Restoration Project, the Monnet Top Project.
0:18.8	Well, Sally Hemings has been in the news again, as she has been since September 18, too.
0:25.1	And they have discovered where her room was
0:30.0	and they're restoring it.
0:31.5	It's part of a $35 million project to embrace the full complexity
0:37.0	of plantation life at Monticello, and that of course means that they must pay attention to the to the 607 slaves that Jefferson owned in the
0:46.3	course of his lifetime and at Montecello at any given time between 50 and 120
0:51.8	enslaved peoples.
0:53.4	But I kind of got hung up this week on newspapers because I just...
0:57.4	You fell in love with the American Aurora.
0:59.4	Well, I fell in love first with Charles Slack's book and then I kind of went how did he find all this
1:04.7	stuff out and in last week's podcast injury you said well I've got this book the American
1:10.3	Aurora and now you have this book I went out and got it as quickly as I could.
1:14.0	I had to, we say in the show that it's not really available anywhere and I think it's out of print.
1:18.6	Leaving by you's copies online. Which is what I did. But it's a really interesting compilation of the of the print pieces from
1:25.9	the publication of American Aurora which was by the grandson of the great Dr
1:30.2	Franklin the grandson's name was Benjamin Franklin Bates, and we had talked about him last
	...

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