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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.
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.”
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."
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