Topic: Daily Life

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Isaac Jefferson

This photograph shows Isaac Jefferson, a free blacksmith in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1847. Born at Monticello, he was one of ten Jefferson slaves who escaped with the British during the...
Lesson Plan

Founding Daughter: Commemorating the Life & Leadership of Martha Jefferson Randolph

After researching the life of Martha Jefferson Randolph, students will formulate questions, interpret primary sources and construct evidence to support an argument. Students will be able to answer essential questions,...
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40th Annual Naturalization Keynote

In this July 4 naturalization ceremony speech at Monticello, author Frank McCourt shares his love for America and its diversity. This love for America drove him to move back to...
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A Cooper

This is an image of a cooper, a typical workman in early America. Coopers made a wide variety of wooden barrels or casks which could be filled with many different...
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A View of New Orleans

This painting celebrated U.S. acquisition of New Orleans as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Access to the port of New Orleans encouraged westward expansion because farmers depended on...
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Abigail Adams to John Adams

This letter describes Abigail Adams’s reaction to the battle of Bunker Hill and the attack on Charlestown, Massachusetts. Adams expresses pride in the American cause and indicates that she has...
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Algonquian Fishing

This image is from among Englishman John White’s watercolor drawings of the Algonquian Indians. White was a thoughtful and respectful observer of Indian life near the Roanoke colony, settled in...
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Almanack

Boston printer Nathaniel Ames printed a publication called an almanac. Containing a wide variety of information, almanacs represented an important source of knowledge for ordinary people about issues as diverse...
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Assiniboin Camp

This painting by the Swiss artist and explorer Karl Bodmer depicts an Assiniboin Indian settlement on the Great Plains in the 1830s. The Assiniboin are a Siouan people who were...
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Cod Fish

Cod fish were the single largest trade good exported from colonial New England. New Englanders fished off the coast as far north as the Grand Banks in Canada. After being...