This is now our third in a series of primary resources associated with Sally Hemings. (Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here.) Our not-yet-published entry on Hemings explains why “The President, Again,” by James Thomson Callender, was so important: In 1802, James Thomson Callender, who once had been Jefferson’s own hatchet man [...]

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As we noted yesterday, we’re beginning to publish some of the primary resources associated with Sally Hemings. And, as it happens, it was on this day in 1858 that Thomas Jefferson‘s granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, penned an oft-quoted letter to her husband, Joseph, on the still-swirling controversy regarding the dead president’s sex life. As [...]

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Ahead of the publication of our entry on Sally Hemings, we are beginning to publish some of the primary resources associated with her life story. One of these is the recollections of Isaac Granger Jefferson, the product of an interview the blacksmith gave in 1847 while living in Petersburg. (That’s him above, in the blacksmith’s [...]

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From the comments section of an interview with Encyclopedia Virginia contributor Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves: To all of you, did anyone of you personally know Mr. Jefferson? Oh, that’s right, he died before ANY of you were born! I truly hope that 100 years from now, no [...]

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  The above video—produced by the web textbook company Soomo Publishing—features a weirdly homoerotic take on George III and a kind of Charlie Daniels Band–meets–Green Day take on Thomas Jefferson. It’s not at all clear who is trying to apologize to whom or why it’s too late, but Ben Franklin plays a mean lead guitar, [...]

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On this day in 1745, a subscriber to the Virginia Gazette advertised the disappearance of his indentured servant, an Irishman with a scar on his head and a crooked finger who “is very much given to strong Drink,” who lisps when he’s drunk, who “plays very well on the Violin, and [who] pretends to teach [...]

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It’s worth pausing to take note of a few things we’re working on here at the encyclopedia: We’ll be launching a complete redesign of the site, perhaps as early as tomorrow. This has been in the works for more than a year, and a big thank you to the folks at NewCity in Blacksburg for [...]

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In honor of Natasha Trethewey‘s appointment as poet laureate of the United States, VQR has commissioned from the Virginia Arts of the Book Center (a sister program of the encyclopedia) the above broadside. Printed by our own poet in residence, Kevin McFadden, it contains an original woodcut by Josef Beery, all in service of Trethewey’s poem [...]

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Today the online journal Slate has published an article that easily fits under the all-too-familiar rubric of “Thomas Jefferson, Hero.” Titled “Thomas Jefferson Debunked One of History’s Most Offensive Scientific Theories,” it explains that even as Mr. Jefferson had “more pressing matters to attend to”—”oh yes, there was the matter of writing the Declaration of Independence”—he [...]

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Title page of Jefferson at Monticello: The Private Life of Thomas Jefferson (1862), by the Reverend Hamilton W. Pierson, a book best known, perhaps, for containing a reminiscence by the Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon. The previous page’s engraving of Monticello has bled through to the title page. This is one in a series of posts that pays [...]

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The new issue of American History magazine features a cover story by Encyclopedia Virginia contributor Henry Wiencek, whose latest book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves, will be released in October. In the magazine piece, Wiencek previews what promises to be a controversial take on Mr. Jefferson as slaveholder. For instance, he [...]

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On July 18, 1808, trustees of the Nottoway Indian Tribe in Southampton County dated a letter to Governor William H. Cabell in which a) they sought instructions regarding their ability to lease Nottoway lands; and b) they included a partial census of the tribe’s members. Why partial? The Nottoways, like other Virginia Indians, were matrilineal. [...]

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From BookStevie’sLibrary comes 1776, the comic book: As seen in the panels here, the lyrics of the memorable songs are quoted as dialogue…making them seem in context to be particularly inane. In fact, Joe Gill’s “adaptation” virtually eschews any real narrative in favor of panel after panel of disconnected illustrations of scenes in the film. The art in [...]

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Presidential Action by Peter Dalkner (2010)

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Thomas Jefferson from John, Paul, George & Ben by Lane Smith

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Above is page 4 of Dixon and Nicholson’s Virginia Gazette from July 10, 1779. It contains “A PROCLAMATION” by Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson regarding a new law from the General Assembly, “An act concerning escheats and forfeitures from British subjects.” Jefferson biographer Willard Sterne Randall explains: Jefferson began his next anti-Loyalist law, an act confiscating all [...]

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Thomas Jefferson Shark Hunter by Meredith Borders

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This is from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814: in the mean time they [African Americans] are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. their amalgamation with the other colour produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the [...]

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IMAGES: Olga San Juan, Noel Niell and Nancy Porter, July 4, 1945; draft of the Declaration of Independence in the hand of Thomas Jefferson (New York Public Library); Screenshot from the Twitter page of comedian and actor Chris Rock (@chrisrock) on July 4, 2012; “Uncle Sam’s Birthday. 1776—July 4th 1918. 142 Years Young and Going Strong,” ca. 1917–1919 (National [...]

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In this episode of WTF, we introduce the new comic book Archie Meets KISS, an adventure which features Archie but also zombies and the glam band KISS. What I especially love, however, is the review of said comic in the online journal PopMatters, which features Thomas Jefferson! If you haven’t read Archie Meets KISS as yet, please do. [...]

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Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814: This enterprise [the emancipation of slaves] is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, & these are the only weapons of an old man. Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, September [...]

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I have been wanting to write a post all week about the appropriation of Thomas Jefferson by the various disputants in the ongoing controversy over the resignation of Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia. My recent illness has prevented me from doing that, so here—if you’ll forgive me—is something a bit more off [...]

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The Board of Visitors, which runs the University of Virginia, has announced today that the school’s president of not quite two years, Teresa Sullivan, will be stepping down. This comes as a great shock to much of the university community, although what isn’t shocking is the habit of practically everyone to draft Thomas Jefferson, the [...]

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Last month we linked to an article in the University of Virginia Magazine about Jefferson’s Bible. The magazine’s new issue features a few letters to the editor on the subject, and this one, from Ernest W. Proctor of Ophelia, Virginia, is my favorite: Pity poor Mr. Jefferson as he labored so diligently with his scissors [...]

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Speaking of Washington and Jefferson, the contributor of our George Washington entry, Henry Wiencek, has a book forthcoming: Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. And Publisher’s Weekly likes it! In a starred review, the publication writes (link, emphasis added): That the author of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, likely fathered several [...]

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