In this Virginia History Blog, we look at titles related to Thomas Jefferson and women. “Seeing Jefferson Anew” investigates Jefferson socially, ideologically, politically and historiographically. “The Women Jefferson Loved” describes Jefferson’s mother, sisters, wife, daughters, mistress and granddaughters. “The Hemmingses of Monticello” narrates the remarkable continuity of a Jefferson slave family over three generations of bondage and freedom.
Seeing Jefferson Anew
John B. Boles and Randal L. Hall edited Seeing Jefferson Anew: In His Time and Ours in 2010. It is available from the University of Virginia Press, and online new and used.
In seven chapter essays, Boles and Hall present a social and intellectual history of Jeffersonian times, trying to reconcile the iconic apostle of liberty along with the imperfections unearthed over the last forty years. They range across Jefferson’s education, women and slavery, materialism and medicine, and a distinction between religious tolerance and indifference to religion. They consider the proper relationship between elected officials and their constituents, and the distinctions between Jefferson the theorist and the politician in policies of the near West east of the Mississippi River versus the far West. One essay examines the uses of Jefferson’s philosophy by both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.
Historians are challenged to take on their subjects not only on their own terms, but also with the benefit of hindsight using modern analytical tools, rather than merely becoming “stenographers” relating what those of the past understood of themselves. Yet still the Jefferson of a newly independent nation, reasoning among representative leaders to solve internal problems, with a leadership subject to those governed, and an example for liberal democracy in self-determined nationalism, seems to trump the 18th century figure who disappointingly held racial stereotypes and persisted in the personal advantages of slave holding.
To buy “Seeing Jefferson Anew” on Amazon, click here.
The Women Jefferson Loved
Virginia Scharff wrote The Women Jefferson Loved in 2010. Available from the Harper Collins Press, Kindle and online new and used. See also Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello (2008).
Jefferson inhabited a personal life among women, his widowed mother, his sisters, and his daughters who outnumbered his sons, his wife and for decades after her death, his mistress. To these women, Jefferson was “vulnerable and knowable”; they were not merely obstacles, distractions or embarrassments to be plausibly denied. They enabled him in his public career, made it possible for him to “sail through life on his own terms” and they contributed to, “shaped”, Jefferson’s vision for the new nation.
This book contributes important new revelations about Jefferson’s mother, Jane Jefferson, as a gentry women devoted to her son, and his short-lived wife, Martha Wales Skelton Jefferson who was capable, strong willed, amiable but with a sharp tongue. Then follow chapters on Sally Hemings, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson, Maria “Polly” Jefferson, and Jefferson’s granddaughters. Jefferson’s women all appeared to know their place dictated by 18th century Virginia colonial social status, but they each displayed substance that can be admired by the modern reader.
To buy “Women Jefferson Loved” on Amazon, click here.
The Hemingses of Monticello
Annette Gordon-Reed wrote The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family in 2008. Available from the W. W. Norton and Company Press, Kindle and online new and used. A Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner. A TVH top 300 Virginia history resource. She also authored Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997).
Gordon-Reed uses this study of three generations of Hemingses to explore the interdependence of their enslaved house servants, skilled artisans and plantation foremen with owner families of the Virginia colonial gentry and New (U.S.) Nation plantations such as the Jeffersons, Randolphs, Eppes and Wayles. Beginning with the Eppes family in 1746, the Hemingses were bound by law, custom and blood to singularly prominent families of the American Revolution and thereafter. Gordon-Reed brings social, political, legal and economic context to the narrative.
Central to this story is the stability of the Hemings family over the eighty years 1746-1826 until Jefferson’s death, and the importance of the matriarch Elizabeth Hemings, long term commitments to enslaving white men by Sally and Mary Hemings, the role of father taken on by John Hemings for the sons of Sally Hemings, and the enslaved children who Jefferson either freed or allowed to “stoll” away. Jefferson is pictured as a “benign” master who was at the same time paternalistic and patriarchal and who was also determined to be personally happy by maintaining an intellectual and materially lavish life-style.
To buy “Hemingses of Monticello” on Amazon, click here.
See Also
Current releases related to Virginia history in other eras from Spring 2018 journals can be found in previous Virginia History Blogs at Colonial Virginia – Spring 2018, Revolutionary Virginia – Spring 2018, and Civil War Virginia – Spring 2018, and New South and Modern Virginia – Spring 2018.
Summer journal titles begin with the Colonial Virginia Era i , Colonial Virginia Era ii, Revolution and New Nation, and Jefferson and Madison.
The TVH webpage for Revolution, Constitution and New Nation Eras 1750-1824, features our top title picks taken from the bibliographies of three surveys of Virginia History’s 400 years: two that are widely used in Virginia college courses, and one to be published by the University of Virginia Press in 2019. Titles are organized by topics related to Political and Economic Virginia, Social, Gender, Religious, African American Virginia, and Wars in Virginia during this time span.
The Table of Contents divides Political and Economic Virginia, 1750-1824 into Revolution and Constitution Policy, and New Nation Policy. Topical history is treated under headings of Social History, Gender in Virginia, Religious Virginia and African American Virginian. Finally, two wars are featured under American Revolution and the War of 1812.
General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Note: Insights for these reviews include those available from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Civil War Era, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.