The Jefferson Image in the American Mind

by Merrill D. Peterson

Since its publication in 1960, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind has become a classic of historical scholarship. In it Merrill D. Peterson charts Thomas Jefferson's influence upon American thought and imagination since his death in 1826. Peterson shows how the public attitude toward Jefferson has always paralleled the political climate of the time; the complexities of the man, his thoughts, and his deeds being viewed only in fragments by later generations. He explains how the ideas of Jefferson have been distorted, defended, pilloried, or used by virtually every leading politician, historian, and intellectual. Through most of our history, political parties have engaged in an ideological tug-of-war to see who would wear "the mantle of Jefferson."

Genres: History, American History, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, American Revolution

558 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Merrill Daniel Peterson was a history professor at the University of Virginia. After spending two years at Kansas State University, Peterson earned his B.A. at the University of Kansas and then took his Ph.D. in the history of American civilization at Harvard University. Before teaching at the University of Virginia, he taught at Brandeis and Princeton.

Reviews

[William Guerrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book in 1980, in the stacks of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia (where I should have been studying instead). Coming back to it 40 years later, my assessment has not changed. This is one of the finest works of history I have ever read, not because of any captivating narrative, but rather because of the sweep and brilliance of the scholarship. This is serious history as it should be written.

"A great man makes history, and is consumed by it." This book is not a study of how Jefferson made history, but rather how history has consumed him.

"Every society needs a sense of continuity with its history," Peterson writes, "a set of commonly diffused symbols rooted out of the past to manifest modes of action and evoke its ideals." He then adds a warning, "But the symbols, unless they are constantly revised to meet the tests of an ever changing national life, may drag the society down to disaster."

Peterson thoroughly examines how Americans have employed or debated Thomas Jefferson and Jeffersonian thought throughout the evolution of the Republic. His look at the Jefferson image during the administration of FDR is particularly fascinating. Even as Jefferson's agrarian republican vision was being swamped by the New Deal, Roosevelt led the charge to create a fitting monument/memorial on the National Mall and to put the image of Jefferson on the nickel and the postage stamps, and across the nation Jefferson reached his highest peak as a national icon. The passage that stuck with me in the 40 years since I first read it (and now a full 60 years after it was written ) remains striking. "The New Deal killed the Jeffersonian philosophy as a recognizable and useable tradition in American government and politics. As if in acknowledgement of the act, some said in a requital for it, the Roosevelt administration built a great national temple to Jefferson's memory. In the death of the political tradition, the AMERICAN hero was full-born at last." "Paradoxically," Peterson concludes, "the ultimate disintegration of the Jeffersonian philosophy of government heralded the ultimate canonization of Jefferson."

"American history sometimes seemed a protracted litigation, negotiations and hearings, trials and appeals in endless number, on Jefferson," Peterson writes. And of course that litigation continues in our time. It is unfortunate that Merrill Peterson is no longer with us, as his take on the current state of the Jefferson image in the American mind would no doubt be illuminating and beneficial.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written. Peterson analyzes the life of Jefferson after his death. His extraordinary influence on ideas. Peterson shows profound insight on the conflicts within Jefferson's ideas particularly between democracy and state's rights. His approach to Sally Hemmings is fair considering the book was written in the '50s.