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A Note on Sources
- University of Virginia Press
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A Note on Sources The authors relied on a wealth of primary source material, much of it found in the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library, to write Rot, Riot, and Rebellion : Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the University That Changed America. Crucial to the undertaking, of course, were the letters of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Joseph Cabell, and Edgar Allan Poe. Also heavily relied upon were the handwritten notes of the university’s faculty chairmen, the minutes of the faculty meetings, minutes from the university’s Board of Visitors, and sundry letters from students, their parents, school administrators and professors, and travelers who happened to pass through Charlottesville during the university’s early years. Several professors also left brief memoirs that proved indispensable. Newspapers of the time that provided material include the Richmond Enquirer, the Richmond Whig, and the Jeffersonian Republican. The diary of student Charles Ellis was especially helpful, as were the letters written by Jefferson’s family members. The authors are also indebted to the few history books written nearly a century ago about the university: Philip Alexander Bruce’s five-volume University of Virginia, John Patton’s Jefferson, Cabell, and the University of Virginia, and Paul Barringer and James Garnett’s University of Virginia. Several student dissertations provided background information, chief among them Charles Coleman Wall Jr.’s “Students and Student Life at the University of Virginia, 1825–1861.” ...