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#1530 A Conversation with Jeffersonian Gardener ...

This week on the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Clay Jenkinson visits with Pat Brodowski, formerly the head gardener at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Pat explains how she found her way to Monticello, what she learned about Thomas Jefferson from working every day in his extensive garden, and how she is occupying her time now as a retiree. Plus, Pat gives tips to our listeners about how to grow something in the next year.

#1530 A Conversation with Jeffersonian Gardener Pat Brodowski
Episode
Staff
#1515 Ten Things About Jefferson's Daughters ...

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky and Clay Jenkinson discuss Jefferson's daughters. Thomas Jefferson was highly expectant of their behavior and let them know it through a series of letters. When he died in bankruptcy, his daughter Martha was left nearly penniless and had to deal with the aftermath of Jefferson's poor money management.

#1515 Ten Things About Jefferson's Daughters with Lindsay Chervinsky
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#1511 The Densmore Repatriation Project

Clay Jenkinson speaks with David Swenson about the ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore and her work with the Lakota in the Dakotas beginning in 1911. David has spent the last year working on The Densmore Repatriation Project, re-cataloging and restoring her wax cylinder recordings.

At Standing Rock in 1911, Frances Densmore met with dozens of tribal elders and recorded traditional songs on wax cylinder. Densmore documented this work in her book Teton Sioux Music which became a touchstone for learning about Lakota/Dakota culture. The Densmore Repatriation Project reintroduces the songs with new recordings made by contemporary Native singers.

#1511 The Densmore Repatriation Project
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Staff
#1502 Ten Things About the Supreme Court

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky and Clay Jenkinson present ten things about the Supreme Court.

#1502 Ten Things About the Supreme Court
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Staff
#1492 Ten Things About King George III

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky and Clay Jenkinson discuss King George III and his effect on the American Revolution. According to the British historian George Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse."

#1492 Ten Things About King George III

The Jefferson Watch

A Rational National Conversation About Guns

Featured
#1548 Ten Things about Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address

This week, Clay Jenkinson discusses Jefferson’s first inaugural address with regular guest Lindsay Chervinsky. The speech, inaudibly delivered on March 4, 1801, is regarded as one of the top five in American history.

#1547 Jefferson, John Marshall, and Judicial Review

This week, Clay Jenkinson interviews frequent guest Beau Breslin of Skidmore College about the most famous decision in Supreme Court history.

#1546 The Founders and the Cutting Room Floor

Professor Beau Breslin of Skidmore College returns to the Thomas Jefferson Hour to talk about important passages that were edited out of key American documents of the Founding Era, including the famous anti-slavery passage of the Declaration of Independence.

#1545 Live from Radford University

This week's episode of the Thomas Jefferson Hour was recorded live at Radford University in Radford, Virginia in February 2023. 

The Death of the American Republic

The Death of the American Republic

My pessimism and fear come from the fact that nobody in the Republican Party condemned President Trump’s actions. No Republican said that Mr. Trump’s attempt to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of his chief political rival in the 2020 election was wrong, a violation of public trust, an offense against fair play, and an assault on our system of elections.

Trump’s Impeachment

What do you do when Republicans refuse to take seriously what they would find absolutely appalling and outrageous, criminal and treasonous, disgusting and constitution-threatening if it were done by a liberal Democrat? We all know that if the situation were reversed and Barack Obama had reached out to Pakistan to demand that they pretend to investigate Jeb Bush or Donald Trump that the Republicans would be having what we used to call a conniption fit, and we’d be in a constitutional crisis at least as severe as this one.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language

During the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings last week, I was surprised to hear several constitutional law scholars cite Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary for definitions of treason, misdemeanors, bribery, etc. They were referring to Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English language. It is not altogether uncommon to hear the name Dr. Johnson—usually in reference to some bon mot he delivered in the course of his life—but it is rare to hear anyone invoke his famous dictionary, the first great dictionary of English.

Studying Jefferson's Impeachments

Here’s why I love what I get to do. The national impeachment crisis over the presidential behavior of Donald Trump has turned us all back to our history books. I have, but have not yet read, several of the recently published books on impeachment, one with chapters by Peter Baker of the New York Times and Jon Meacham, America’s latest favorite presidential historian.

The Illimitable Search for Truth

The Illimitable Search for Truth

We must never stop reading and expanding and raising our consciousness. It was Benjamin Franklin’s final act of moral courage, when he was operating on a very thin fund of vitality, that made me turn my attention back to Jefferson, searching for parallels, and what I saw was complacency and self-interest, not moral courage.

The Republic on the Brink of Collapse

The Republic on the Brink of Collapse

The words constitutional crisis are thrown about too often, but I must tell you we are in one now. The Trump White House has said it will not comply with the House of Representatives impeachment investigation. What if the Senate removes the last guardrail—legal eviction—and the President realizes that there is no further check on his behavior?

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe

Over the past few days I have had the wonderful guilty pleasure of sitting down to read Robinson Crusoe cover to cover. I know I should have been doing other things, some of them pressing, but I just sat there and read this famous and fabulous account of a man who is shipwrecked on a small island off of Venezuela and spends 28 years there, 26 alone with a parrot and some semi-domesticated flocks of goats.

Meriwether Lewis on the Ohio

Meriwether Lewis on the Ohio

The extension of the Lewis and Clark Trail from St. Louis all the way to Pittsburgh is an invitation for all of us to reboot our understanding of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The late Stephen Ambrose deserves credit for giving ample space to the Ohio River portion of the transcontinental journey in Undaunted Courage and for penning a sentence that has been much reproduced in Lewis and Clark literature, especially by those who wish to bring greater prominence to the Eastern Legacy: “When they shook hands, the Lewis and Clark Expedition began.”