ESSAYS

Below you will find a series of essays that expand upon selected events and individuals gleaned from the archival materials of JUEL; browse them to learn of notable, unusual, and historic incidents in the formation and early years of Jefferson's University. The essays serve to inform and entertain, while also providing potential entryways into the documents available in the JUEL database (such as names, dates, institutions, and other subject matter by which to search).

The majority of essays below have been written by student research assistants and represent the significant student-faculty collaboration that is at the heart of JUEL. Along with writing, students are trained in archival research, documentary editing, and the use of digital technologies for the representation and analysis of historical resources. Our current cohort of students represent the varied and talented student body of the University of Virginia; to learn more, please visit the Staff Page. 

Architecture: 

• Pavilion X: A Brief History (1820-1895) 
• Pestilence and Privies: Original Outhouses of the University 
• The Anatomical Theatre (1825-1939)

Daily Life/Notable Incidents: 

• The Establishment of a University Dispensary (1826)
  
• An Early Proposal for a University President (1826)
  
• Offences, Punishment, and Early Student Self-Governance at the University (1824)
  
• The Proctor, The University, and the Law (1825)
  
• Typhoid Fever at the University (1829)
• Mr. Forbes Kicks a Slave (1834)
• Kitty Foster, Mr. Vandergriff, and Student Mischief in Venable Lane Neighborhood (1834)
• A Reward for Honesty (1836) 
• The Use of the Riot Act (1836)
• A Student Contests Judiciary Ruling of Faculty (1838)
• Student Group Protests Faculty Ban on Preacher (1838)
• Professor Bonnycastle's Slave is Beaten by Students (1839)
• Mr. Moon Throws a Knife at a Servant (1839)
  
• The Chairman is Horsewhipped (Yet Receives Little Sympathy from the Student Body) (1839)
• The Faculty Forbids Cheating (1841)
• A Review of the Conditions of the Grounds (1849)
• A Complaint At McCoy's Boardinghouse (1855)
• A Student Beats A Slave (1856)
• Violent Resistance and Student Self-Governance: A History of Public Day
• The Confederate Flag Flies Atop the Rotunda: Faculty and Student Sentiments on Secession (1861)
  
• A Scholarship for State Students (1818) 
• Enoch Faw Visits Monticello (1857)
  
• A "Fanatical Clamor": UVA Reacts to John Brown's Raid
• Lawrence of Hotel A
• Gossip So Good, Maria C. Broadus Had To Share It Twice
  
• Prosecution vs. Progress: Slave Courts in the 19th-century 
• Student Autograph Books of the 1850’s
  
• Shakespeare and Scripture in Autograph Books
  
• UVa Public Day puts students' brilliance on display
  
• A transect: School of Architecture course looks at "Narratives of Slavery”
• Did the murder of Professor John Davis bring the Honour Code to the University of Virginia?
  
• Robert Garlick Hill Kean: Confederate Commentator
• Grave Robbing Instance in 1837
• Draffen's Tavern*
• Fitch's Tavern
• Close Reading: A Student's Poem and Thomas Jefferson's Legacy (1835) 
• Robert M.T. Hunter's Fourth of July Address (1839)
• The Shooting of John A.G. Davis: a Student's Perspective (1840)
• "Something New, Romantic, and Sublime": Weyer's Cave and the University of Virginia
• A Warm Welcome: U.Va. Students Burn an Effigy of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1855
• “An Urgent Want of Additional Lecture Rooms”: University of Virginia Enrollment 1846-1861
• What We Can Learn from the Letters of Thomas Hill Norwood (1841-1917)
  
• Spalding’s Glue: “Useful in Every House” and Every Confederate Campground?
• Marriage in the Civil War According to Eugene Blackford
• Jefferson Davis after the War
• The Enslaved Workers of Pavilion X
• John B. Minor & the Tensions of Mastery
• Phil - hired out by John B. Minor
• "A Bond Created in Bondage" -Scott Wood letter to John B. Minor
• Audit of Ledger

Contextualizing Essays:

• Virginia’s Geography and Demographics, 1819-1861
• Antebellum Virginia’s Evolution in Political Economy
• The Court of the University (1826)
• Water at the University of Virginia from 1825-1850
• Partisan Politics in Virginia, 1819-1859
• Virginia and the Secession Crisis, 1859-1861
• A Brief Guide to Civil War Armies
• The Place of Religion in the Early University
• The Temperance Movement at UVA
• "The Destinies of the South Must Be Entrusted to Our Keeping": 1850s Secessionist and Pro-Slavery Thought at the University of Virginia
•  The University of Virginia: Academic Incubator of the Lost Cause?
• The Fifteen Hand Law at UVa
•  Woodrow Wilson's Virginia Education
• The UVa Cemetery

Biographies:

• Albert T. Bledsoe: Mathematician, Theologian, and Proslavery Philosopher
• Bernard Gaines Farrar Jr.: University Student and Union Soldier
  
• Charles Ellis Jr.: Biography of A Student (1817-1900)
• Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, A Notable Alumnus (1820-1890)
  
• Henry Clay Pate, Student (1832-1864)
  
• What We Can Learn from the Letters of Thomas Hill Norwood (1841-1917) 
  
• James Ancrum Winslow: UVA Unionist 
• James Albert Harrison
  
• John Hartwell Cocke (1780-1866)
• James M. Deems: UVA Music Instructor and Union Army General
• James P. Holcombe: Champion of Slavery and Secession