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  • Book Notes
  • John B. Boles, Margaret Stack, Timothy Vanderburg, Fay A. Yarbrough, and Rachel Hooper
The Private Jefferson: Perspectives from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. With essays by Henry Adams, Peter S. Onuf, and Andrea Wulf. (Charlottesville: Published by University of Virginia Press for the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2016. Pp. xiv, 208. Paper, $35.00, ISBN 978-1-936520-09-1; cloth, $60.00, ISBN 978-1-936520-08-4.)
Matthew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806– 1873. By John Grady. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 2015. Pp. viii, 354. Paper, $45.00, ISBN 978-0-7864-7821-7.)
Martyr of Loray Mill: Ella May and the 1929 Textile Workers’ Strike in Gastonia, North Carolina. By Kristina Horton. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 2015. Pp. vi, 232. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7864-9964-9.)
Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi. Directed and produced by David Shulman. (DVD, 82 minutes; San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2015. Home use edition, $49.95; institutional edition, $295.00. Ordering information available online, www.newsreel.org.)
Love and Solidarity: Reverend James Lawson and Nonviolence in the Search for Workers’ Rights. Directed by Michael Honey. Produced by Michael Honey and Errol Webber. (DVD, 38 minutes; Oley, Pa.: Bullfrog Films, 2016. $225.00, ISBN 1-941545-59-9. Ordering information available online, www.bullfrogfilms.com.)
The Ground on Which I Stand: Tamina, a Freedmen’s Town. By Marti Corn. Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2016. Pp. xxii, 140. $40.00, ISBN 978-1-62349-376-9.)
He Loved to Carry the Message: The Collected Writings of Douglas Helms, 1979–2010. Edited by Sam Stalcup. ([Raleigh, N.C.]: Lulu Enterprises, 2012. Pp. 733. $49.32, ISBN 978-1-105-67846-2.)
Fever Within: The Art of Ronald Lockett. Edited by Bernard L. Herman. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. lxxvi, 84. $45.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-2762-5.)

The Private Jefferson: Perspectives from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. With essays by Henry Adams, Peter S. Onuf, and Andrea Wulf. (Charlottesville: Published by University of Virginia Press for the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2016. Pp. xiv, 208. Paper, $35.00, ISBN 978-1-936520-09-1; cloth, $60.00, ISBN 978-1-936520-08-4.)

The great bulk of the Thomas Jefferson papers are divided between two institutions: the Library of Congress, holding mostly items related to politics; and the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS), in some forty collections but primarily the Coolidge Collection, holding mostly family and personal papers totaling almost 10,000 items. To celebrate the 225th year of its founding, the MHS decided to publish this spectacular volume highlighting fifty-six items from its Jefferson collections, each presented in full color, with the items—and the Jefferson papers in general—put in context by three exemplary introductory essays. Peter S. Onuf, the premier scholar of Jefferson’s political ideals, provides a wonderfully concise overview of Jefferson’s vision for America in “The State of the World: Thomas Jefferson’s Political Vision.” While there could have been a dozen or more essays on particular aspects of Jefferson’s interests, Andrea Wulf employs her expertise in the Euro-American world of gardening to highlight aspects of Jefferson’s commitment to domestic agriculture in “Revolutionary Gardens: Jefferson, Politics, and Plants.” And, making excellent use of many of the architectural drawings in the collections of the MHS, Henry Adams in “The Architectural Jefferson: The Draftsman and His Ideals” traces the evolution of the design and construction of four of Jefferson’s iconic building projects: Monticello, Poplar Forest, the Virginia State Capitol, and the University of Virginia. Drawing on their larger body of research and writing, the three authors perceptively introduce their respective subjects and relate them to the items depicted in the catalog portion of the book. What follows, in 140 pages, are handsomely reproduced photographs of the wide variety of Jefferson’s written artifacts in the collection: for example, his 1783 catalog of books; letters to political leaders and to his children and grandchildren; a wide range of architectural drawings; drafts of speeches and of the Declaration of Independence; pages from...

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