You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Thomas Jefferson has inspired a rich literature about his life; studies have appeared about his political, scientific, artistic and architectural interests and achievements and his creativity as a writer. More sensational aspects of his life have also been explored: several of Jefferson's slaves bore a remarkable resemblance to the Jeffersons, and looked more like him than his own children. Fawn Brodie claims that some of Jefferson's slaves were the children of Jefferson and a pretty mulatto girl, Sally Hemings.
There is, however, an unexplored but emotionally and intellectually important area in Jefferson's life: he attached himself to a number of gifted and original women. By examining his relationships with five women, I want to demonstrate a pattern that might help us understand Jefferson's relationship with his mother—one for which we have no historical evidence. Some of the common features of these women might also enable us to construct a kind of composite design for Jefferson's mother, of whom no portrait exists. These five women, though widely differing in social and economic rank as well as national origin, had in common a zest for learning and culture, an avid admiration of Jefferson's talent and knowledge, and a keen desire to be consoled and to console. All of them were married or widowed.
His relationship to his mother is one of the great mysteries of his life to this day. No correspondence between Jefferson and his mother exists. It is known that he burned the entire correspondence between himself and his wife. His mother's letters may have been destroyed by Jefferson as well or they may have been burned during a fire in 1770. Despite this absence of evidence, historians agree that his artistic and literary talents came from his mother and her family rather