On February 18, 2016, Peggy Cornett presented the first lecture in a new four part CPN Thursday series entitled Jefferson’s Legacies.
Third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson had many interests including a love of botany. Monticello Curator of Plants Peggy Cornett talks about Jefferson’s interest in botany the effects of which can still be seen today.
Peggy Cornett has worked at Monticello since 1983. Shebegan as an associate director of gardens and grounds and from 1992 to 2009 she served as director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. Before Ms. Cornett assumed her current position, Curator of Plants, she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with degrees in English and botany and a master’s degree in public garden administration from the Longwood Graduate program at the University of Delaware.
Ms. Cornett has lectured widely on garden history topics throughout the United States as well as at the American Museum in Bath England, and for the Bermuda Rose society in Hamilton Bermuda. Peggy writes articles for gardening magazines, professional journals, including the American Public Garden Association, and she wrote, produced and edited Twinleaf, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants annual journal and catalog. Since 1990 she has edited and produced Magnolia, the quarterly publication of the Southern Garden History Society.
The lecture series was organized by award-winning historian and Charlottesville-based author, lecturer, and cartographer Rick Britton in conjunction with the Senior Center in Charlottesville.
Click here to listen to all four parts of this series.