Monticello Blog

Why the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom is the key to political freedom and free thought.

“Rebellion to tyrants is Obedience to God” – We have come to think of this impassioned phrase as distinctly Jefferson, but there’s more to this story.

The issue of Jefferson’s paternity has been the subject of controversy for at least two centuries, ranging from contemporary newspaper articles in 1802 (when Jefferson was President) to scholarly debate well into the 1990s. It is now the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s view that the issue is a settled historical matter.

From writing the Declaration of Independence to commissioning the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson is one of the most influential figures in our presidential history. But strides toward social and political freedom were not the only things he made relevant during his two terms. We have Jefferson's unique taste to thank for popularizing some of the most beloved foods in American culture—think ice cream, mac 'n' cheese and even french fries.

Before the era of Wii’s, Twitter, and Netflix, the Jefferson family entertained themselves with music, reading aloud, or scientific inquiry. As part of an ongoing campaign to restore Monticello’s interiors, curators recently acquired an air pump similar to Jefferson’s lost original.

In mid-September 1817, Thomas Jefferson was preparing to leave Poplar Forest and return home to Monticello, but he had a few errands to run first. He set off for Lynchburg, where he visited the shop of James Newhall and purchased what was perhaps his first and only pair of “ready-made” shoes. Unfortunately, they didn’t fit and Jefferson returned them with a somewhat exasperated note that got me to wondering: where did most people get their shoes, what did those shoes look like, and who made them?

One of the emotional insights of the hit musical Hamilton is its portrayal of the passionate friendship between the protagonist and his brilliant, self-assured sister-in-law—Angelica Schuyler Church. What the show doesn't mention is that Church also pursued a long-term friendship with one of Alexander Hamilton's greatest political rivals—Thomas Jefferson.

Did you ever want to know more about what Martha Jefferson Randolph was like before she was the mother of eleven of Jefferson's grandchildren.

Here at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, we spend most of our days reading Jefferson’s two-hundred-year-old mail. Jefferson wrote approximately 19,000 letters during his lifetime, so you can imagine how many more letters he also received! And that means we have a lot of different handwriting to navigate.

What gives spurious quotes away as "fakes." When we used to receive questions about these, we would often know right away that it wasn't a genuine excerpt from Jefferson's writings. How did we know?