Greetings! I’m Emily Bradley Greenfield, a historian of American slavery and memory. My work explores the many ways we reconstruct the past — the remembering and forgetting that unfolds across the built memorial landscape, in textbooks and museum halls, and on tour at historic sites. After receiving my PhD in history from Stanford University, I joined the University of Virginia’s Jefferson Scholars Foundation as a postdoctoral fellow.
My current book project investigates the long public history of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, the influential and idiosyncratic American memorial tucked in the hills above Charlottesville, Virginia, and enshrined on the back of the US nickel. My research has been generously supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies.
In addition to my scholarship, I have more than a decade of experience telling stories in the public sphere. As a producer for CBS News’ Face the Nation, I earned an Emmy Award for my contributions to a broadcast commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. I also served on the executive leadership team of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, where I helped develop the Life of Sally Hemings exhibit. I continue to advise on museum and media projects with a historical bent.