America at 250 Series
Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 on the Virginia frontier, into wealth, land, and the labor of enslaved people. He grew tall, red-haired, and quiet — a man who preferred his books to his guests, and his pen to his voice.
At thirty-three, he sat in a Philadelphia rooming house and wrote that all men are created equal. He owned more than six hundred human beings in his lifetime. He freed almost none of them.
He served as governor, minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, and then, in 1801, president. He doubled the size of the country with a stroke of the pen and a payment to Napoleon, and sent Lewis and Clark to see what he had bought.
He retired to Monticello, founded a university, and wrote letters to John Adams until the end.
They died on the same day. July 4, 1826.
