This Virginia History Blog considers three titles of Thomas Jefferson Biography. “The Road to Monticello” is an intellectual history of Jefferson’s connections to American philosophy, literature and education. “Flight from Monticello” is set during Jefferson’s governorship in the Revolution. “The Jeffersons at Shadwell” is a two-generational study of their Piedmont plantation.
The Road to Monticello
Kevin J. Hayes wrote The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson in 2008. Available from the Oxford University Press, Kindle and online new and used. Author of The Library of William Byrd of Westover (1997). See also Douglas L. Wilson Jefferson’s Books (2002), and Robert A. Ferguson The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (1997). A companion volume to E. P. Thompson Whigs and Hunters (1975) for historical methodology.
Jefferson is prominent in American histories of American government, politics, diplomacy and law. But as a diligent bibliophile, he was also widely connected and influential in developing American intellectual philosophy, literature, and education. In this literary biography, Hayes studies Jefferson’s development with his principle teachers, Rev. William Douglas and Rev. James Maury, W&M Professors William Small in science and George Wythe in law. Jefferson later expanded the fluent Latin of his youth with modern languages of French and Italian to study important authors of the Enlightenment.
Jefferson’s continuing education was made by his acquiring a personal library through his booksellers who ranged from Jacques Francois Froulle in Paris to Joseph Milligan in Washington. Following an initial loss of the family library at Shadwell to a fire, Jefferson subsequently augmented his own acquisitions with the family collections of his wife’s Skelton family, Williamsburg intellectuals, Peyton Randolph and the Reverend William Willie. Jefferson’s personal acquisitions were eventually the core genesis of the Library of Congress.
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Flight from Monticello
Michael Kranish wrote Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War in 2010. It is available from the Oxford University Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A companion to David McCullough 1776 (2005), and David Hackett Fischer Washington’s Crossing (2005).
This account of the American Revolution brings events in Virginia to the fore. Focusing on Thomas Jefferson’s 1781 evasion of British troops pursuing him at Monticello, Kranish explores the politics and warfare in Virginia during the travail and uncertainty of the Revolution. The setting begins with the development of Jefferson’s revolutionary thought beginning in Williamsburg schooling and law practice, amid acquaintances as diverse as William Byrd III and Patrick Henry. Speaker John Robinson was found personally pocketing 100,000 pounds and more for his friends, Henry became a radicalized Patriot, Governor Lord Dunmore was expelled, and Byrd became Loyalist.
As a Virginia delegate from the General Assembly to the Continental Congress, Jefferson is the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, but as Governor his primary occupation was devoted to raising and supplying the Virginia militia, defending against internal enemies, and preparing for British raids and invasion. In this he failed in that Benedict Arnold successfully invaded in 1781, burned Richmond, the new inland capital of Virginia, and nearly captured Governor Jefferson. He came under criticism from former Governor Patrick Henry and General Frederick von Steuben, but the General Assembly saved him from the embarrassment of an investigation.
To buy “Flight from Monticello” on Amazon, click here.
The Jeffersons at Shadwell
Susan Kern wrote The Jeffersons at Shadwell in 2010. It is available from the Yale University Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A companion to John K. Nelson A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 (2001), a TVH top 300 pick for Virginia history.
In this interdisciplinary study of archeology and history, Kern explores a frontier transitional zone from the 1730s. Built in 1741, Shadwell was the 31-slave plantation of Thomas Jefferson’s parents, Peter and Jane Jefferson where they raised their eight children. Located on the Rivanna River in Albemarle County nearby Monticello’s later mountain site, it was used to grow tobacco and grain. Established on the Virginia Piedmont frontier, militia colonel Peter Jefferson was nevertheless a famous surveyor and cartographer of Virginia land claims west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he and his well-bred English born wife Jane became connected Virginia gentry.
Kern also develops a substantial narrative of slave life on the Shadwell plantation, including the African American kinship ties, family-related housing, skills, what they made for themselves and what was purchased for them. Thomas Jefferson’s enduring interest in Native Americans may have begun with the occasional Shadwell visits by the Cherokee warrior Outassete and others transiting to Williamsburg. The fire that destroyed the manor in 1770 included an early introduction to scientific study for young Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica, with a chapter title “Of the blackness of Negroes”.
When Thomas Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767, he returned to Shadwell to live with his mother, and was elected a delegate to the House of Burgesses from Albemarle County. Surviving her husband by twenty years, Jane Jefferson continued living at Shadwell, and following the reconstruction of the home place, Jane Jefferson lived there until her death in 1776, when it was leased out by Thomas.
To buy “Jeffersons at Shadwell” 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.