The Material World of the Jeffersons at Shadwell
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3243183 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan Kern (0009-0007-5568-9588, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 213 |
| Publication date | 2005-04-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3491600 |
| OpenAlex | W2075885137 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
CHOLARS who study Thomas Jefferson have had a difficult time defining his origins in the context of late-colonial Virginia culture. On no topic is Jefferson scholarship more mired in previous generations of interpretation than that of Shadwell, his birthplace, in what is now Albemarle County.1 The popular mythology of Thomas Jefferson contends that Peter Jefferson was a backwoodsman, a native of the frontier, and that Jane Randolph Jefferson brought her gentry standards to the household, though her influence was not strong. The Jeffersons were a successful planter family, yet, the story goes, the young Thomas left his Shadwell and Tuckahoe homes and his boyhood schoolmasters, and went to the metropolis where he learned his manners and tastes for finer things, first in Williamsburg, then Philadelphia, Paris, and London. Contrasting popular perception, most scholars acknowledge that Peter Jefferson had nearly the status his wife had; he was, after all, a county surveyor, a county justice, a burgess, and an acquaintance of many important players in midcentury Virginia. Yet historians still embrace a story that Thomas Jefferson necessarily moved between dramatically different worlds when he moved from Shadwell to the best tables in
Business · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · Race, History, and American Society
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2006 - 2010 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |