Saving Monticello

Released on by Marc Leepson
preview-18

  • Saving Monticello Book Detail

  • Author : Marc Leepson
  • Release Date : 2002-03-06
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Genre : History
  • Pages : 320
  • ISBN 13 : 074322602X
  • File Size : 69,69 MB
DOWNLOAD BOOK

Saving Monticello by Marc Leepson PDF Summary

Book Description: The complete history of Thomas Jefferson's iconic American home, Monticello, and how it was not only saved after Jefferson's death, but ultimately made into a National Historic Landmark. When Thomas Jefferson died on the Fourth of July 1826, he was more than $100,000 in debt. Forced to sell thousands of acres of his lands and nearly all of his furniture and artwork, in 1831 his heirs bid a final goodbye to Monticello itself. The house their illustrious patriarch had lovingly designed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his beloved "essay in architecture," was sold to the highest bidder. So how did it become the national landmark it is today? Saving Monticello offers the first complete post-Jefferson history of this American icon and reveals the amazing story of how one Jewish family saved the house that became their family home. With a dramatic narrative sweep across generations, Marc Leepson vividly recounts the turbulent saga of this fabled estate. Monticello's first savior was the mercurial U.S. Navy Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, a sailor celebrated for his successful campaign to ban flogging in the Navy and excoriated for his stubborn willfulness. In 1833, Levy discovered that Jefferson's mansion had fallen into a miserable state of decay. Acquiring the ruined estate and committing his considerable resources to its renewal, he began what became a tumultuous nine-decade relationship between his family and Jefferson's home. After passing from Levy control at the time of the commodore's death, Monticello fell once more into hard times. Again, a member of the Levy family came to the rescue. Uriah's nephew, a three-term New York congressman and wealthy real estate and stock speculator, gained possession in 1879. After Jefferson Levy poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into its repair and upkeep, his chief reward was to face a vicious national campaign, with anti-Semitic overtones, to expropriate the house and turn it over to the government. Only after the campaign had failed, with Levy declaring that he would sell Monticello only when the White House itself was offered for sale, did Levy relinquish it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923. Pulling back the veil of history to reveal a story we thought we knew, Saving Monticello establishes this most American of houses as more truly reflective of the American experience than has ever been fully appreciated.

Disclaimer: www.yourbookbest.com does not own Saving Monticello books pdf, neither created or scanned. We just provide the link that is already available on the internet, public domain and in Google Drive. If any way it violates the law or has any issues, then kindly mail us via contact us page to request the removal of the link.

Saving Monticello

Saving Monticello

File Size : 12,12 MB
Total View : 7394 Views
DOWNLOAD

The complete history of Thomas Jefferson's iconic American home, Monticello, and how it was not only saved after Jefferson's death, but ultimately made into a N

My Monticello

My Monticello

File Size : 65,65 MB
Total View : 4841 Views
DOWNLOAD

“A badass debut by any measure—nimble, knowing, and electrifying.” —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffl

The Hemingses of Monticello

The Hemingses of Monticello

File Size : 13,13 MB
Total View : 4442 Views
DOWNLOAD

Historian and legal scholar Gordon-Reed presents this epic work that tells the story of the Hemingses, an American slave family and their close blood ties to Th

The Levy Family and Monticello, 1834-1923

The Levy Family and Monticello, 1834-1923

File Size : 69,69 MB
Total View : 1173 Views
DOWNLOAD

Although the Levys literally saved Monticello from ruin--not once, but twice--in the nineteenth century, and actually owned the property longer than Jefferson,