“I saw the future of the American experiment in the West.”
Catherine Jenkinson returns to host a conversation with President Jefferson about his travels in France, Europe and the United States.
Further Reading
- Jefferson Abroad, edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Lucia C. Stanton
- Founders Online: From Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, with Enclosure, 10 August 1787
On the Road with Thomas Jefferson
The Jefferson Watch
Jefferson traveled quite a bit for a man of his time. He visited most of the northern states, some several times, and he was back and forth to New York, Philadelphia, and eventually Washington, DC, quite often. He seems never to have ventured into North Carolina or any place south of the Virginia line. But he spent five years in Europe and saw quite a bit of it given his deep devotion to his administrative and diplomatic work, and his aversion to roughing it.
Read this week's Jefferson Watch essay, "On the Road with Thomas Jefferson."
What Would Jefferson Do?
“Travel is a mirror that we look into and see something of our own style, but we also see possibilities for our own enlightenment.”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
“So he records in a barn? Where’d he get that?”
Benjamin Franklin was considered “the grand old man” of the American Revolution, and when questioned about what the men of the Constitutional Convention had delivered, he answered, “A republic, if you can keep it." This week, in an out-of-character program, we talk more about Benjamin Franklin.
I bought a used pickup over the summer and a modest, used Steinbeck-like truck camper. Rocinante. I intended to winterize it over the weekend, then a blizzard appeared out of nowhere. By mid-afternoon, I would have sold that rig for ten cents on the dollar. I don’t deserve to pretend to be Thomas Jefferson.
"I never traveled farther than about 75 miles west of my birthplace. I never really saw the other side of the Appalachian Mountains."
— Clay S. Jenkinson portraying Thomas Jefferson