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Thomas Jefferson
Best known as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. He was a man of many talents---an architect, an inventor, a scientist, and a collector of books and artifact of American history. He could read more than 5 languages and the U.S. minister to France for several years.
1） Jefferson and the Library of Congress
During the War of 1812 the British invaded Washington and burned the Capital building in 1814.They also burned the 3000 volumes in the Library of congress, which was then housed in the capital. While Jefferson was president from1801 until 1809, he took a strong interest in the library of congress and its collection, personally recommending book and appointing the first two Librarians of congress. In fact, he said, “I can not live without books.” By the time the war happened, Jefferson was retired and living at his home in Monticello. There he had his own private library, known as the largest and finest in the country. Jefferson offered to sell congress his private collection of 6487 volumes for $23950 to help restart the library. Jefferson’s collection included many topics that the library never had before. Until this time, the library’s collection had been devoted to legal, economic, and historical works. Jefferson’s collection included works on architecture, the arts, science, literature, and geography. It also had books in French, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, and Russian. Jefferson believed that all subjects could be of interest to members of congress, and deserved to be in collection. So now they had the books, where did they put them? The library collection was kept in the congressional reading room in the capitol, but in 1871 the librarian of congress at that time, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, suggested that they construct a separate building for the library. In 1886, congress approved the project. Spofford wanted to “domed reading room at the library’s center, surrounded by ample space for the library’s various departments.” When it was finished, it was the largest and costliest library building in the world. In 1980, the building was renamed the Thomas
Jefferson
Building in honor of the man whose personal collection helped rebuild the library.
2)Thomas Jefferson at Home
Thomas Jefferson was a man of many interests. While serving as the American minister to France in the 1780s, he developed quite a taste for European cooking. When he returned to the U.S. from France, he brought with him a French cook and many recipes from France and Italy. One of the Italian foods he ate was pasta. In his drawing of a macaroni machine you can see that Jefferson was figuring out how the dough was made.
Some of Jefferson’s favorite dishes to serve guests included macaroni, macaroons, peach flambé, and ice cream. While in France, Jefferson collected many French recipes for things such as sauces, fruit tarts, French fries, blood sausages, pig’s feet, rabbit, and pigeon. One of the recipes he brought home has since become an American favorite: vanilla ice cream. This was one of the most popular dishes at his home in Monticello, and this recipe was written by Jefferson himself. On the back is his recipe for Savoy cookies to go along with the ice cream. Jefferson had to have a nice place to invite his friends and serve them delicious food, His home in Charlottesville, called Monticello (“little mountain”), was known as one of the finest estates in Virginia. He designed his home himself and he included a series of rooms where he entertained guests. He also created a room just for his boos and an office with a copy machine. Some of his public rooms displayed things he had collected: Native American artifacts, fossils discovered by Lewis and Clark, and images of people he admired. Today you can visit Monticello, which is recognized as a national treasure.
3) The Declaration of Independence
Almost everyone knows that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. However, did you know that, like most people who write something, he wrote at least one rough draft? This is an example of what’s left of the earliest known draft of the Declaration, You can see that Jefferson heavily edited this first draft before he prepared a clean, or fair, copy that become the basis of the original rough draught. The other representatives from the 13 colonies selected Jefferson to write the Declaration because they all agreed he was the best writer.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are crated equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
These words may be the best known part of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration explains why the 13 colonies wanted independence from Great Britain. However, the Declaration is not the law of the land.
Thomas Jefferson contributed greatly to the development of the United States, but the single most important item was the Declaration of Independence. His belief that each generation has the chance to remake the country’s laws and constitutions was truly visionary. Even at the end of his life Jefferson believed in the blessings of self-government and an ever-changing society in which the people in which the people through their elected representatives continue to make new laws. Can you think of some laws that have been made recently?
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发表于 2008-3-4 22:03:00
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