#1232 Listener Questions

This week, we discuss listener questions about architecture, Sally Hemings, revolutionary war, Jefferson as a scientist, recommended books and how Clay's life has been affected by performing as Thomas Jefferson.

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"What I discovered was that Jefferson embodies — in many respects, not in all of them — the world that I want to live in. I want to live in Thomas Jefferson's America. I want to live in a rational country, a country that prizes books and the liberal arts. I want to live in a country that believes that science is our guide; he called it our oracle. I want to live in a country that attempts at social equality and extending due process and the rights of man to every living human and maybe beyond the limits of humanity. I want to live in a world in which harmony and civility are the principles of our public life, rather than rancor and shaking of fists and mean-spirited talking points and innuendo and character assassination. I love the agrarian — Jefferson's view that a human with his hands in the soil is almost automatically a better human than somebody whose hands are not in the soil. I love the Lewis & Clark expedition. So, in almost every respect, becoming acquainted with Jefferson and eventually, I hope, mastering him, has made my life much, much, much more than it otherwise would have been."

— Clay, responding to a question from listener Ryan McKenzie

Further Reading:


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Countdown to the Eclipse

The Jefferson Watch

Start planning. A total eclipse of the sun will occur on Monday, August 21, 2017. These things don’t happen very often—a few occurrences in a lifetime and not always where you can observe it without helicopters and speed boats.

Read this week's Jefferson Watch essay, "Countdown to the Eclipse".


What Would Jefferson Do?

 
 
In my ideal America, I would have preferred a barter economy to a money economy.
— Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson

Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?

Listen to this week's episode.


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