The VCU Center for Judaic Studies and the VCU Friends of the Library
present The Sixteenth Annual Brown-Lyons Lecture.  This year's speaker
will be Dr. Melvin I. Urofsky of Virginia Commonwealth University's
Center for Public Policy.  Dr. Urofsky will present the lecture, "Saving

Mr. Jefferson's House: The Levy's and Monticello, A Drama in Five Acts,"

at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, 2001 in the School of Engineering
Auditorium, 601 West Main Street, on the Academic Campus of Virginia
Commonwealth University.

Dr. Urofsky's lecture will examine the little known history of the Levy
family and their ties to Monticello.  Commodore Uriah P. Levy, the first

Jewish American to obtain the rank of Commodore in the U.S. Navy,
purchased Jefferson's "essay in architecture" in 1836.  It remained in
the Levy family for over ninety years, weathering the Civil War, great
legal battles and even an attempt by the government to purchase it
before it was sold to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923.

Dr. Melvin I. Urofsky is the Director of the Doctoral Program, Center
for Public Policy, at Virginia Commonwealth University and has been a
professor of History at VCU since 1974.  The author and editor of more
than forty books and hundreds of articles in several fields, he has
concentrated in recent years on American Jewish and Constitutional
History.  Dr. Urofsky received his undergraduate and doctorate from
Columbia University and holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia.
His latest work, Saving Thomas Jefferson's House: The Levy's and
Monticello, 1834-1923, will be published in the spring of 2001.

This annual lecture is made possible through the generosity of Jacob and

Selma Brown and the late Dr. Harry Lyons.

This event is free and open to the public.  A reception will immediately

follow the lecture.  Deck parking is available on the 800 block of West
Main Street across from Richmond's Landmark Theater.

For more information or to arrange special accommodations, please
contact Melinda Gales at  (804) 828-1108 or by e-mail at
[log in to unmask]


--
Ray Bonis
Assistant Archivist
James Branch Cabell Library
VCU Libraries

Phone: (804) 828-1108
FAX:  (804) 828-0151
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/speccoll.html

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