From wearing a plain suit of clothes and walking to his inauguration, to allowing guests to choose where they sat at dinner, to greeting diplomats wearing bedroom slippers, Jefferson purposefully made his persona one of “republican simplicity.” In doing so he was creating new and distinctly American customs—or to use a modern term, establishing the “brand” for himself and his country.
In this live Q&A, Senior Historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Gaye Wilson draw from her 2018 book, Jefferson on Display: Attire, Etiquette, and the Art of Presentation, to decipher Jefferson’s public image and what it means.