The latest issue of the Journal of the Early Republic (27 no. 1, Spring 2007) is a feast for the Jefferson aficionado, including:
"Beyond the Wall: Reinterpreting Jefferson's Danbury Address," by Johann N. Neem
Richard Alan Ryerson reviews Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 by John Ferling
The latest issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (vol. 115, no. 1) has an article of interest to Jefferson and University of Virginia scholars: "Mr. Jefferson's University: Women in the Village!" by Phyllis Leffler. VMHB is sadly not available online (not to us, anyway), but the latest issue will be playing all week at the Jefferson Library, for those who would like to peruse it...
Albemarle Monthly magazine just published in its February-March 2007 issue a profile of the Jefferson Library, replete with lovely photographs of our building. Unfortunately, the article isn't available online, but you can still see a little of what you're looking for. That same issue has some other Jeffersoniana worth checking out!
The latest issue of Colonial Williamsburg (vol. XXIX no. 2, Spring 2007) has a few articles of particular interest to Jeffersonists:
"Jefferson's Tardy Constitution," by Jack Lynch (the online version includes the "Jefferson's Constitution Zoomable Slideshow," which requires Flash)
Annette Gordon-Reed discusses a tricky question in the latest American Heritage magazine (vol. 58 no. 5, Fall 2008): "Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? A Historian Tackles One of American History's Thorniest Questions". Don't worry, I won't give away the ending, but Gordon-Reed brings up some intriguing facts and makes some thought-provoking observations.
Congratulations to John Ragosta, one of our former ICJS fellows, who has an article in the new Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, "Fighting for Freedom: Virginia Dissenters' Struggle for Religious Liberty during the American Revolution" (vol. 116 no. 3).
In the October 27th issue of Newsweek, you can read an article entitled "It's Not Easy Bein' Blue" and Jefferson is mentioned. The author argues that for the most part we are a center-right country and it has been like that for a lot longer than we may think. Jefferson is part of the "staple tenets of the central faith in American political ideologies" like private property, individual choice over government mandate, and individual opportunity.
The arrival of the latest William and Mary Quarterly (or WMQ, as I affectionately call it) has occasioned its usual flutter of excitement among its devotees. The following items in the table of contents caught my eye:
The latest Journal of Southern History (volume LXXIV no. 4, or 74 for us Roman-numerically-challenged people) carries an article by former ICJS fellow Brian Steele, "Thomas Jefferson, Coercion, and the Limits of Harmonious Union" (pp.
Good thing I know somebody with a subscription to American Scientist, otherwise I would never have found out that Keith Thomson (another friend of ours and former ICJS fellow) published an article in the May-June issue, "Jefferson, Buffon and the Moose" (pp. 200-202). It's an excellent overview of the philosophical argument between Buffon and Jefferson regarding "degeneracy" of New World flora, fauna, and even people vs. those of the Old World.
The arrival of our annual issue of the Magazine of Albemarle County History is always eagerly awaited. This year's issue has some special visual goodies: possibly the first photographs ever taken of Monticello, in Antoinette W. Roades' article, "Photographed by William Roads: A Portrait of the Artist Through the Lens of His Work" (35-66 - images of Monticello on page 61). Along with possibly being the First Photos Ever of Monticello, these could also possibly be the Saddest Photos Ever of Monticello - it's looking pretty decrepit at that point in time (late 1860s).
In the latest issue of Early American Life is an article by once-and-future ICJS fellow Andrea Wulf, "The Brother Gardeners," described thusly: A mutual love of plants drew American John Bartram and Englishman Peter Collinson into a long-term partnership that changed the face of European gardening. (I assume this is a very-much condensed overview of Andrea's book of the same name.)
A recent editorial by Thomas Fleming in the Wall Street Journal asks the question, "Was George W. Bush such a bad president?" I mean, look at...Thomas Jefferson, for example! He really whiffed on that embargo thing. Read Fleming's litany of Low Moments in the American Presidency and decide for yourself...
American Scientist is getting a lot of mileage out of Jefferson lately. In the March-April 2009 issue of American Scientist, mathematician Lawren Smithline helps out the folks at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson by decoding a supposedly-unbreakably-encoded message sent to Jefferson by Philadelphia smarty-pants Robert Patterson in 1801.
And by "extravaganza" I mean "two book reviews in one issue." In the latest Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (vol. 117 no. 1):
Douglas L. Wilson reviews Kevin Hayes' book, The Road to Monticello (review-o-meter: Wilson thinks the book is too long. The word "leaden" is used.)
Catherine Kerrison reviews Annette Gordon-Reed's book, The Hemingses of Monticello (review-o-meter: overwhelmingly positive. Lots of description of the book's contents.)
Once-and-future ICJS fellow Andrea Wulf published a short, fascinating article in The Guardian just yesterday - the Obamas are digging up a patch to plant vegetables at the White House, following a long tradition of presidential vegetable gardeners, including Our Man TJ (of course).
Last September, I received a question from someone looking for a Jefferson letter titled, "The Value of Constitutions." Jefferson didn't usually bother to give his letters titles, so this was a bit puzzling. I finally figured out that this letter had been published in a volume edited by Edward Dumbauld, chapter 4 of which was titled, "The Value of Constitutions." It seemed pretty obvious that somewhere along the way, someone had quoted from the letter and attached the chapter title
October, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Meriwether Lewis's bizarre death, and oh what a smorgasbord of Lewisiana there is to wallow around in this year.
Jefferson's got something uncannily insightful to say about everything (or so it seems), so I suppose it was only a matter of time before comparisons of the current Somali Pirate Situation to Jefferson's Barbary Pirate Situation starting popping up like daffodils. Just a sideways mention at first. Then a more direct one.
I was unaware of this, but it seems that our beloved local apple, the Albemarle Pippin, is in fact a native of New York (just like Your Correspondent, here). The Big Apple has decided to get serious about jettisoning the image of the vile-tasting but very photogenic Red Delicious Apple in favor of the homely-but-yummy Pippin. This all goes along nicely with the cresting wave of the local food movement, as well. A blog entry
This month's Magazine Antiques features an article by Cybèle Gontar on Campeachy (Campeche) chairs - the article is heavy on the TJ content. Campeachy chairs, for those who may be unfamiliar with them, are curious low-slung neo-something pieces of furniture, of which Jefferson was inordinately fond and owned several. Sitting in one shifts your center of gravity in such a way that they are right tricky to get out of.
The 2008 issue of Furniture History: The Journal of the Furniture History Society is All John Soane All the Time, with “A Catalogue of the Furniture in Sir John Soane’s Museum,” as well as several articles on John Soane and his furniture. Who's John Soane, you say, and what's he got to do with Thomas Jefferson? And I say: well, architecture, neoclassicism...something like that. All I know is, Curatorial wants me to buy lots of books on John Soane, and I do whatever they tell me.* Anyway, here's a panoramic
Two articles with TJ/Monticello content in the latest issue of Early American Life:
"The Faces of a Generation," by Audrey J. Wolfe, about sculptor John Browere (who did a near-deadly life mask of Jefferson - there's a rather horrifying description of the proceedings by granddaughter Virginia here)