You make our work possible. Please help us continue.

Donate Now

As a man of the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson valued reason and the application of knowledge toward human progress. This also helps to explain his appreciation for gadgets and tools that helped him work more efficiently. 

Case in point: the revolving desk he designed and commissioned in Paris around 1785.

In this video, Associate Curator Diane Ehrenpreis takes us through how she recreated this lost object from a small drawing in Jefferson’s hand.