Monticello Blog

Imagine a world where life moved at four miles an hour, and the most one could readily travel in a day was just thirty miles. Such was the slow world Thomas Jefferson was born into in 1742.

For Jefferson, almost any activity could be transformed into an act of citizenship.

Thomas Jefferson had an enemy in Alexander Hamilton, a frenemy in John Adams, and his BFF in James Madison. Jefferson and Madison formed a political partnership and personal friendship that made them the dynamic duo of the Founding Fathers.

Despite thousands of surviving documents, LMonticello’s curators have only recently fully understood Jefferson’s comprehensive system for drafting and organizing his correspondence. These eight original objects served as components or tools that Jefferson used to arrange incoming letters, respond to them, often after “elaborate research,” copy his own letters, and organize everything for easy retrieval – even decades later. Jefferson’s Cabinet and Library were the hub of his reading and writing activities.

Workshops located on Jefferson’s Mulberry Row included a nailery, which became operational in 1794. Jefferson hoped the nailery would become a source of cash income where “a parcel of boys who would otherwise be idle” could turn “tons of nail rod into thousands of nails.”

Before he was President, before he wrote the Declaration of Independence, before the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson feared an invisible enemy.

Against a backdrop of COVID19, research on Jefferson may not seem that important. Nonetheless I have, when not attending Zoom meetings with colleagues, or grading essays and exams, or having online supervision sessions with graduate students, attempted to carry on research and writing.

On February 5, 1769, Thomas Jefferson replied to his cousin’s request that his son study law under him. Writing from Shadwell, his boyhood home, Jefferson said he must decline: "I do not expect to be here more than two months in the whole between this and November next, at which time I propose to remove to another habitation which I am about to erect."

Damaged Copper Cookware Imperils French-Style Cuisine at Monticello, 11 July 1824