Jefferson Hall – more formally known as "Hotel C" – is a building on the West Range of the University of Virginia. It is the traditional home of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society; the term "Jefferson Hall" (or "Jeff Hall" or "The Hall") is sometimes used as a synonym for the organization.
Jefferson Hall is one of six original "hotels" that Thomas Jefferson designed when laying out the plans for the University of Virginia. The hotels originally served as student dining facilities. When not boarding students, various student organizations made use of the building as meeting space. The Patrick Henry Society originally met in Hotel C until the group's dissolution in 1830. The Washington Literary Society and Debating Union met there from its founding in 1835 until 1837, at which point it moved to Pavilion VII on the Lawn and, from there, to hotels on the East Range (the current incarnation of the Washington Society now meets in Hotel C on Thursday evenings). In 1837, the University's Board of Visitors granted the Jefferson Society control of the largest room in the building and, in 1841, the BOV gave the group permission to remove the walls partitioning the main level of Hotel C, leaving that floor as one large room.
The Confederate States of America used Jefferson Hall as a hospital during the American Civil War.
Jefferson Hall underwent major restoration and renovation in summer 2006.
Besides the Jefferson and Washington Societies, Jefferson Hall today is used by a wide range of student, faculty, and community groups, including the International Relations Organization.
Famous quotes containing the words jefferson and/or hall:
“I duly acknowledge that I have gone through a long life, with fewer circumstances of affliction than are the lot of most men. Uninterrupted health, a competence for every reasonable want, usefulness to my fellow-citizens, a good portion of their esteem, no complaint against the world which has sufficiently honored me, and above all, a family which has blessed me by their affections, and never by their conduct given me a moment’s pain.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The statements of science are hearsay, reports from a world outside the world we know. What the poet tells us has long been known to us all, and forgotten. His knowledge is of our world, the world we are both doomed and privileged to live in, and it is a knowledge of ourselves, of the human condition, the human predicament.”
—John Hall Wheelock (1886–1978)