The 1921 Centennial Celebration at UVA was hosted to honor Thomas Jefferson and his founding ideals. The four-day event glorified Jefferson’s legacy, focusing solely on all the positives of his lifetime and his everlasting influence throughout the university. This hyperfocus on Jefferson’s inspirational perspectives led to the ignorance of the more controversial aspects of Jefferson’s character, which undoubtedly also had an impact on the values that UVA is built upon.

My archival object was the Centennial Celebration poster, likely created for the purpose of advertising and/or commemorating the event. Upon first impression, it reminded me of concert or film posters that are collected as a token from the event. The poster is printed in color and shows the view of the Rotunda and Academical Village from South Lawn. In the bottom third of the poster, we see a collection of different people dressed in clothing from various historical time periods, and Thomas Jefferson’s figure is at the center of this crowd. Behind the Rotunda, a large shadow of Jefferson is projected into the background to depict the overarching title of the event and takes up the upper half of the poster. Blocks of text overlay the visuals to communicate the title and dates of the event.

The people represented in the crowd are what originally drew me to the poster, as I realized that the varying dress highlights all the eras of history that UVA had lived through from founding to 1921. However, every person depicted was white – this exactly reflects how the pageant never acknowledged the indigenous land that UVA is built on or the enslaved labor that both built and ran the university. They were key to the fabric of UVA, but were missing from not only the poster but also the entire celebration, which led me to wonder: What decisions were made when deciding what groups to acknowledge and honor at the pageant? How did the university consider and treat enslaved laborers in the time leading up to and around the pageant? How do we consider the paradox of Jefferson’s public condemnations of slavery, but reliance on enslaved labor at his own university?

The Centennial Celebration was especially riddled with themes of nationalism, racism, and colonialism, and intentionally neglected to acknowledge and celebrate all deserving parties. Given that the poster supposedly serves as a snapshot of the pageant, it excludes relevant groups of people who played crucial roles in the development and maintenance of UVA, particularly enslaved laborers. Enslaved laborers served as the university’s backbone, responsible for all the early stages of UVA’s development, from manufacturing the bricks laid to running daily operations and everything in between (Wolfe). Yet, they went entirely unrecognized at the Centennial Celebration.

Unsurprisingly, in the decades leading up to the Centennial Celebration, UVA’s leadership consistently made conscious decisions to segregate in efforts to create what they believed to be an ideal outward image of the university. What we now know today as Jefferson Park Avenue was originally paved for the purpose of putting in place a physical barrier between the University and the predominantly black neighborhood then known as Canada. The neighborhood’s name was inspired by how slaves in America would flee to Canda for freedom. Charlottesville’s Canada was established over time after it became “a primary destination for slaves escaping southern states and held out a promise of hope for the future” (Foster report 39). As the neighborhood grew in population, it also grew in presence, eventually leading to the university to raise concerns with it in the late nineteenth century. The Board of Visitors considered Canada to be filled with “shanties” (Foster report 39) and eventually erected Old Cabell Hall in 1896 at the end of the Academical Village Lawn solely for the purpose of blocking “the area immediately to the south of the University’s land and in full view…filled with unsightly houses” (Foster report 40).

The overarching themes of racism and colonialism weaved throughout the university leadership’s efforts to paint a lofty, all-white picture of UVA in the late 1800s, and carried on into the Centennial Celebration in the form of absence by refusing to recognize the crucial role that the black community plays in the university’s ecosystem. Though some progress was made over the following decades, such as the admission of the first African American student in 1950, UVA’s direct role in the gentrification and discrimination against black populations persisted into the late nineteenth century (Wolfe). UVA’s surge in population in the late 1900’s and the establishment of the University Health System displaced a number of Black neighborhoods, reflecting how the university continues to prioritize its own power and presence, reminiscent of the themes of racism and colonialism that were present at the Centennial Celebration (Cameron and Kahrl).

These themes of racism and intentional exclusion of certain groups of people extended far beyond just UVA – We see parallels of excluding the stories of relevant groups at another major event, the 1933 Chicago World Fair, just a little over a decade after the Centennial Celebration. Similar to how the poster failed to include the enslaved laborers at UVA, the official guidebook for the fair entirely forgoes the role of Black women at the fair and utilizes a “putatively objective voice, disguised as neutrality when in fact cloaking the politics, perspectives, and propaganda of white patriarchal supremacy.” The guidebook also demonizes Indigenous people, painting them as aggressors against white settlers, completely ignoring the human trafficking, slavery, and indentured servitude that was prominent throughout Illinois’s history leading up to the fair (Ege 179).

The 1921 Centennial Celebration at the University of Virginia, while intended to honor Thomas Jefferson and his founding ideals, ultimately presented a sanitized and incomplete version of the institution's history. The event's narrow focus on Jefferson's positive attributes and the university's achievements failed to acknowledge the complex and often troubling aspects of its past – something UVA still struggles with over a century later – particularly regarding race and slavery. The Centennial Celebration poster, with its all-white depiction of historical figures, symbolizes the selective narrative that ignored the contributions of enslaved laborers. This carefully curated image reflects a broader pattern of exclusion and discrimination in UVA's history, mirroring similar practices at other higher education institutions of the time. As we reflect on this celebration, it becomes clear that a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to commemorating the university's past is necessary - one that acknowledges both achievements and shortcomings, recognizing the contributions of all individuals who played a role in its development, regardless of their race or social status.

Works Cited:

Cameron, Brian and Karhl, Andrew. “UVA and the History of Race: Property and Power.” UVAToday. https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-and-history-race-property-and-power. Accessed February 25, 2025.

Ege, Samantha. South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene. University of Illinois Press. 2024.

Rivanna Archaeological Consulting. “The Foster Family – Venable Lane Site.” pp. 39-40.

Wolfe, Brendan. “Jefferson’s Shadow.” https://brendanwolfe.com/mr-jeffersons-great-shadow. Accessed February 25, 2025.