Kamensky comes to Charlottesville from Harvard University’s history department. Here is the press release: CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the private nonprofit that owns and operates Monticello, is pleased to announce the appointment of Jane Kamensky, Ph.D., as...
Thomas Jefferson
The Author’s Corner with Peter Thompson
Peter Thompson is Sydney L Mayer Associate Professor of American History at the University of Oxford. This interview is based on his new book, Heir through Hope: Thomas Jefferson’s Lifelong Investment in William Short (Oxford University Press, 2023). JF: What...
Trump prophet reads a fake Jefferson quote and then says “take that and choke”
Hank Kunneman is a New Apostolic Reformation preacher and Seven Mountain Dominionist. He is part of the Dutch Sheets and Lance Wallnau crowd of “prophets” that we covered here. In this video Kunneman expounds on the history of church and...
The Author’s Corner with Travis McDonald
Travis McDonald is Director of Architectural Restoration at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. This interview is based on his new book, Poplar Forest: Thomas Jefferson’s Villa Retreat (University of Virginia Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Poplar Forest? TM:...
James Madison: “A tax on newspapers” would be “an insidious forerunner to something worse”
About a year ago, Current published Steven Waldman‘s piece “The Return of Local News.” Waldman is the president and cofounder of Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. He also serves as chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition....
“His rotundity” versus a supposed atheist and anarchist
Over at his Substack, historian William Hogeland is telling “lurid tales” of American elections. He begins his series with the presidential election of 1796. Here is a taste of his post: Jefferson supporters, labeling Adams “His Rotundity,” claimed that the...
On the slaveholder Jonathan Edwards and the Christians who read him
This past weekend a couple of folks called my attention to tweets from Joash Thomas. According to his Twitter bio, he is the National Director of Mobilization & Advocacy for the International Justice Mission (IJM) of Canada. I have great...
More from the “Evangelical Fearmongering 101” syllabus
When Thomas Jefferson was running for president in 1800, Federalist evangelicals claimed that if the Virginian won the election he and his henchman would try to close their churches and confiscate Bibles from their homes. When Irish Catholics started arriving...
For MAGA Christians, it doesn’t matter if the founding fathers’ quote they use is true, as long as it rallies the base
Dutch Sheets is a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, a brand of charismatic evangelicalism that powers the Christian MAGA movement. Sheets leads pro-Trump prayer tours around the country, travels around with Lance Wallnau, Charlie Kirk and others where he...
Thomas Jefferson: hero or villain?
The title of this post is not, primarily, a historical question. It is primarily a moral question. We should keep the complexity of the past in mind as we celebrate Independence Day. Check out early American historian’s Jack Rakove‘s recent...
Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel does not believe in the separation of church and state
In a recent debate between Ohio U.S. Senate candidates Morgan Harper (D) and Josh Mandel (R), the question of the separation of church and state came up. Watch: Here is Mandel’s answer in writing: I do not believe in the...
The Author’s Corner with Andrew O’Shaughnessy
Andrew O’Shaughnessy is Vice President of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. This interview is based on his new book, The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s...
David and Tim Barton think Jefferson was a “real Christian.” But could he be an elder in their church?
Here is the Wallbuilders Facebook page: The strange part of this post is that the Bartons are promoting Jefferson as a real Christian, but if he applied for the elder or deacon board at their church his application would be...
If American democracy is in crisis, expect calls for Supreme Court reform
Joe Biden wants to reform the Supreme Court. This kind of judicial reform also happened in the 1790s, 1850s, 1890s, 1930s, 1970s, and 2010s. Here is a taste of Syracuse University political scientist Thomas Keck‘s piece at The Washington Post:...
The CPAC vocabulary. Defining terms.
I am teaching the American Revolution this semester. The other day, as we were reading and interpreting some primary documents, I asked the students to notice how the writers of these documents all seemed to use a similar political language....
The Author’s Corner with Dennis Rasmussen
Dennis Rasmussen is Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University. This interview is based on his new book, Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders (Princeton University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Fears of...