Richie's Picks: THOMAS JEFFERSON: DRAFTSMAN OF A NATION by Natalie S. Bober,
University of Virginia Press, March 2007, ISBN: 978-0-8139-2632-2
"The most important thing to remember about Thomas Jefferson is that he
taught us the power of the word. He taught us that ideas matter -- that words
beautifully shaped can reshape lives. Jefferson distilled into one remarkable
sentence the essence of our creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident;
that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness...' Indeed, in the words he wrote he changed the shape of
our
country and became one of the most notable champions of freedom and
enlightenment in recorded history. He had a vision of what the world should be.
"Jefferson speaks not only to Americans today but to people the world over
-- particularly in the emerging democracies of Europe. In a sense, his words
are responsible for the most liberal reforms, including the eventual end of
slavery, the civil rights movement, and the suffrage of women.
"Even before his death, the language of the Declaration was appropriated by
new claimants -- freed Blacks, abolitionists, early advocates of women's
rights -- until it received decisive transformation by Abraham Lincoln at
Gettysburg, when he said: 'We are a nation dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal.' Thomas Jefferson wrote that proposition." --from the
Author's Note
Having been the oldest grandson -- and (once upon a time) a very
well-behaved one at that -- I was regularly dropped off at my paternal
grandparents'
house on Mulberry Avenue in Garden City for some weekends during the school year
and for a week at a time in the summer. The entrance to Hemlock Park was
perhaps 25 steps from their back door, and I typically divided my time between
The Park, and my grandfather's upstairs office overlooking The Park.
One day during the summer that followed the first coming of the Beatles,
being a point in time when I was reading well enough to regularly consume an
entire Beverly Cleary or Carolyn Haywood book in an evening, my grandfather,
Rex, set up one of those portable card tables with the round metal fold-down
legs, set out a yellow legal pad and sharpened pencils, and brought out a book
that, at the time, appeared large enough to literally crush a small child.
It was a compilation of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. I was encouraged
to sit down at the card table for the purpose of reading and taking notes on
the Autobiography portion of the enormous book. Because I lived for pleasing
my grandfather, I spent large portions of that week doing exactly that.
And what I learned of that autobiography's author caused me to forever since
maintain an affinity for all things Thomas Jefferson, a guy whose
world-altering reading and writing abilities were complemented by the hundreds of
diverse
hands-on talents he also acquired during a lifetime that began, as Bober
writes in THOMAS JEFFERSON: DRAFTSMAN OF A NATION:
"When William Randolph took his friend Peter Jefferson to visit his Uncle
Isham, Peter met Isham's seventeen-year-old daughter Jane. Tall, slender,
graceful, and elegant, she had a cheerful disposition and a fine mind. Two years
later, on October 19, 1739, she and Peter were married. He was thirty-two;
she was nineteen. She brought with her many slaves from her father's
plantation. With this union, Peter Jefferson, an man without family prestige or
social pretense, became identified with one of the leading families in Virginia.
In eighteenth-century Virginia there were two distinct groups: the
aristocracy, typified by Isham Randolph; and the yeomanry, who were, for the most
part, industrious, belligerently independent, and instinctively democratic. The
marriage of Jane Randolph to Peter Jefferson joined the two classes. Of
these two strains would come the unique mosaic that was Thomas Jefferson."
Back in my Book Buyer days, I read a paperback reprint of Natalie Bober's
1988 Jefferson biography, THOMAS JEFFERSON: MAN ON A MOUNTAIN. I enjoyed it so
much that I continued on to read her biography of Abigail Adams. A few
years later, when Bober's COUNTDOWN TO INDEPENDENCE: A REVOLUTION OF IDEAS IN
ENGLAND AND HER AMERICAN COLONIES, 1760-1776 was published, it easily made it
onto my Richie's Picks Best of 2001 list.
Now Bober has done something rarely seen in trade publishing: a do-over. As
the author states in her Author's Note, "History is an argument without
end." Theories in which Bober believed two decades ago, regarding Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings, were essentially proven false by DNA testing. And so
armed with new knowledge and a new perspective, the author has now written a
new biography of this most complex of forefathers.
"Peter Jefferson had been an example of industry and responsibility, but it
was his love of learning more than anything else that was his legacy to his
son. The only thing Thomas Jefferson wrote about his father -- almost
sixty-four years later, when he was seventy-seven -- reveals what was most
important
to him throughout his life: '...being of strong mind, sound judgment, and
eager after information, he read much and improved himself.' Books would
become for his son the means to 'improve himself,' the keys to unlock the mystery
of any subject he wanted to learn. Books would become the passion that ruled
and shaped his life."
In wrestling anew with the question of how such an amazing man of ideas
could create those immortal words about all men being created equal and, at the
same time, condone slavery, Natalie Bober combines her skill for impeccable
research with an unsurpassed ability to turn history into captivating story.
And while that might sound cliche, the fact is that we are lucky if we
discover a handful of YA nonfiction titles in a year that are immersed
simultaneously in research and story to the degree found in THOMAS JEFFERSON:
DRAFTSMAN OF
A NATION.
Thomas Jefferson provided my first real inspiration to write about ideas and
to internalize the ideals upon which America was founded. It has been truly
fulfilling to, once again, spend a couple of days reading and writing about
him.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks)
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