 | Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates Subjects: Jefferson Thomas 1743–1826 -- Friends and associates; Jefferson Thomas 1743–1826 -- In literature; United States -- History -- 1783–1865 -- Sources; In this volume, Kevin J. Hayes collects thirty accounts of Thomas Jefferson written by his granddaughters, visiting dignitaries, fellow politicians, and others who knew him as a family man, public servant, intellectual, and institution builder. The letters and reminiscences of those who knew Jefferson personally reveal him to be a warm, funny man, quite unlike the solemn statesman so often limned in biographies. To friends and enemies alike he was the model of a republican gentleman, profoundly knowledgeable in philosophy and natural history, able to converse in several languages, and capable of great wit but contemptuous of ceremony and fancy dress. Through these excerpts, we can see the nation's third president as his family knew him--a loving husband, father, and grandfather--and as his peers did, as a tireless public servant with a fondness for tall tales. Kevin J. Hayes is a professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma. His books include An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887 ; The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson ; The Mind of a Patriot: Patrick Henry and the World of Ideas ; and The Library of William Byrd of Westover , for which he received the Virginia Library History Award. In addition, he coedited, with Isabelle Bour, Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa, 2011). |
