Friction with Monticello's new leadership prompts another early exit (2024)

Another preeminent scholar of early American history will be leaving the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Founding Father Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate due to friction with its current leadership, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The source corroborated previous reporting from The Daily Progress that Frank Cogliano, interim director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, was offered the role on a permanent basis only to have it rescinded days later.

It is among a number of claims regarding Cogliano that Monticello denies.

Its new president Jane Kamensky, who joined the foundation in January, says she is “grateful for the dedication and expertise” Cogliano has brought to the center since he joined last summer.

“We have worked closely together since my arrival in mid-January, and I know I am not alone in having learned from his scholarship. I very much hope we will continue to collaborate in the future,” Kamensky told The Daily Progress in a prepared statement.

Despite multiple sources now corroborating the allegations, Monticello spokeswoman Jenn Lyon said, “The Daily Progress has received bad information.”

As an author and editor of multiple books on Jefferson and the American Revolution, Monticello naturally holds great meaning for Cogliano. So much so that, according to the source, when the foundation’s former President Leslie Greene Bowman asked if he’d want to take the interim position at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, Cogliano was willing to scale back his work at the University of Edinburgh to do so. At the renowned Scottish university, Cogliano serves as a professor of American history and as dean international. After much consideration, the source said, Cogliano moved from Europe to Virginia with the understanding that the position could become a longer-term arrangement.

“The assumption was that although it was an interim post, if he wanted to he could stay,” the source told The Daily Progress.

But Cogliano will not be staying. His contract with Monticello expires on June 30. In fact, after sensing tension with leadership, Cogliano offered to leave his post early, but his offer was rejected, according to the source.

There was a brief moment when Cogliano appeared on track to continue on as director. According to sources, he was offered the permanent position as director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies by Tobias Dengel, chairman of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation board and CEO of Charlottesville-based app developer WillowTree. But the offer was made over the phone, and there was never anything in writing.

Days later, the offer was revoked because Kamensky “refused to allow it,” according to another source who spoke with The Daily Progress earlier in the year and also requested anonymity.

Dengel did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Progress about the claim. But he denied it the last time he was contacted regarding the same accusation from other sources.

“I have never offered a job or permanent role at Monticello or the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to anyone besides Gardiner Hallock as Interim President and Jane Kamensky as President and that includes the permanent director role at ICJS,” Dengel wrote in January. “It is the mandate of the Board (and almost any Board) to select the President and then the President selects his or her leadership team.”

Cogliano himself has not commented the matter since The Daily Progress began reporting on his imminent exit and other departures from the mountaintop.

Both sources who have spoken with The Daily Progress on the condition of anonymity have requested not to be identified out of fear of retribution. They have been interviewed and vetted by The Daily Progress and their claims have been checked against one another.

Both say the internal drama can be traced back to the foundation’s search for a new president last fall in the wake of Bowman’s resignation after serving nearly 15 years in the position. After a search, the finalists for the top job were Kamensky and Cogliano, both of whom interviewed for the post, according to the sources.

In January, Dengel and board member L.D. Britt said the board selected Kamensky, a Harvard University historian and author, in a unanimous vote.

“That’s how it usually is,” Britt told The Daily Progress. “Any sort of discontent is dissolved, and you make it unanimous.”

Both sources said that Kamensky seemed uncomfortable allowing Cogliano to continue in his role at the International Center for Jefferson Studies while she led the foundation after the two competed for the same job.

In November, not long after Kamensky was selected as president but before her tenure officially began, Monticello was to host a gala in New York City. Cogliano was to attend and was also scheduled to speak at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice.

The night before departing for New York, Cogliano received a phone call from interim President Gardiner Hallock, who disinvited the Jefferson scholar from the gala, according to one source. Cogliano still made the trip because he was set to speak at the Ford Foundation, but the source said he did not attend the gala.

Hallock did not respond to request for comment from The Daily Progress.

Monticello’s website includes a page commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, asking readers to join a “special gathering of Monticello’s greatest friends and supporters.” It includes an itinerary for Nov. 2 and Nov. 3.

On Nov. 2, Cogliano is listed as a featured guest speaker for a conversation on “Dreams of the Future, History of the Past” at the Ford Foundation. The following night, according to the schedule, was a black-tie event: the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Centennial Gala.

After the perceived sleight, Cogliano offered to end his contract early and return to his post at the University of Edinburgh, “because he knew he wasn’t wanted” at Monticello, one source said.

Kamensky denied Cogliano’s request, the source said.

“He tried to get out of the way, he tried to make things easier,” said the source. “[Kamensky] wouldn’t allow him to do that.”

Sometime before a book launch where he promoted his newest work, “A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson and the American Republic,” Cogliano was scheduled to speak to some of the foundation’s largest donors.

The event was slated to occur at Montalto, the mountain next door to Monticello which is home to a 116-year-old country house owned by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and used for events. But according to the source, Kamensky canceled the event on short notice.

Lyon, the Monticello spokeswoman, said the source’s claims are “demonstrably false and lack credibility.” Lyon, however, was not able to provide any evidence otherwise.

Cogliano’s upcoming departure has prompted other departures at Monticello.

The Daily Progress previously reported that renowned Jefferson historian Annette Gordon-Reed resigned from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation board late last year. Gordon-Reed has written multiple award-winning books on Monticello, and in 2009, was the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Asked in January why she left the board, Gordon-Reed did not offer specifics, instead calling the decision to leave “wrenching” and mentioning the “friends I made during these endeavors.”

“I wouldn’t have walked away without good cause,” she wrote to The Daily Progress, adding that she had concerns about the foundation’s “future direction.”

At the time, another source told The Daily Progress that Gordon-Reed’s concerns about the foundation’s “future direction” was a reference to Kamensky.

Historians Peter Onuf and Patrick Griffin also resigned from their posts on the advisory committee for the International Center for Jefferson Studies.

Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation’s professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, was more direct than Gordon-Reed as to why he was leaving.

“I resigned because of my disappointment that Frank Cogliano was not kept on as Saunders Director at the ICJS,” Onuf told The Daily Progress in January. “He’s a fine scholar and has excellent connections in the community of Jefferson and Early American Republic scholars at home and abroad. He would have played a vital role for the ICJS in the forthcoming celebration of the Declaration’s 250th [anniversary].”

Griffin, Onuf and Gordon-Reed all attended Cogliano’s February book launch, with Onuf and Gordon-Reed joining him on stage to discuss the complicated friendship between Jefferson and fellow Founding Father George Washington. Among those in the crowd was Kamensky, who lauded the trio’s scholarship in an introductory speech.

“In sum, these three are revolutionary friends,” said Kamensky.

In speaking about his book, Cogliano told his audience that Griffin, Onuf and Gordon-Reed had been vital to his work, offering him guidance at a time when he felt the book may never be completed.

“This book is about friendship, and I am so, so grateful to them for being here,” Cogliano said.