- More on Henry Wiencek, whose book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves, is now available. Annette Gordon-Reed (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello) comes to Jefferson’s defense. She writes that Wiencek misunderstands a great deal and what he thinks is new, is not. Basically she says the book cannot be trusted. See Slate,
Jefferson Was Not a Monster
(19-Oct-2012).
The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson: Rebutted
Visitors to Monticello often wonder at its practical accessories. Jefferson labored a month to save a minute. His home was impractical from the start — by reason of its very site (on a mountain), by the height given the first version of the building (later disguised in a way that left useless spaces in and around its dome), by the perpetual course
of its dismantling and reassembly. To make the house more convenient, he made his daughter and her children live for years in a chaos of artistic second thoughts, sometimes sheltered only by canvas as the roof rose, fell, and assumed new shapes in his mind.
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978)