Collection Items

  • Book/Printed Material
    The records of the Virginia Company of London The records of the Virginia company of London also available in electronic form on the Library of Congress Web site.
    • Contributor: Virginia Company of London - Kingsbury, Susan M. (Susan Myra) - Library of Congress
    • Date: 1906

    Resources:
    View 646 Pages View 670 Pages View 806 Pages View 624 Pages

  • Collection
    Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606-1827 The papers of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), diplomat, architect, scientist, and third president of the United States, held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, consist of approximately 27,000 items, making it the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Dating from the early 1760s through his death in 1826, the Thomas Jefferson Papers consist mainly of his correspondence, but they also include...
    • Contributor: Jefferson, Thomas

    Collection Items: View 26,690 Items

  • Web Page
    Related Resources Catalogs and Calendars of the Papers Thomas Jefferson at the Library of Congress Calendar of the Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson. Part I: Letters from Jefferson. Bulletin of the Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State. No. 6, July, 1894. Washington: Department of State, 1894; reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1970. LC Call Number: E302 .J452. Online at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012288358 External Part II:...
  • Web Page
    Rights and Access The Library of Congress is providing access to The Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress for noncommercial, educational and research purposes. While the Library is not aware of any copyrights or other rights associated with this Collection, the written permission of any copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for reproduction, distribution, or other use...
  • Article
    Articles and Essays
  • Article
    American Sphinx: The Contradictions of Thomas Jefferson An essay by historian Joseph Ellis from the November-December 1994 issue of Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress.
    • Date: 1776
  • Article
    Anne Cary Randolph's Household Accounts, 1805-1808 Between 1805 and 1808 Thomas and Martha Jefferson’s teenaged granddaughter kept her household accounts in the blank pages of a notebook previously used by her grandparents. This essay reveals and contextualizes Randolph’s practice of trading with Monticello’s slaves.
    • Date: 1805
  • Article
    Selected Quotations from the Thomas Jefferson Papers A brief selections of quotations from Thomas Jefferson’s papers at the Library of Congress.
    • Date: 1776
  • Article
    The Jamestown Records of the Virginia Company of London: A Conservator's Perspective Library of Congress senior paper conservators Sylvia R. Albro and Holly H. Krueger tell the remarkable story of how Library conservators rescued Thomas Jefferson’s colonial Jamestown records from disintegration.
    • Date: 1553
  • Article
    The Thomas Jefferson Papers Timeline: 1743 to 1827 This timeline covers the period documented by Jefferson’s own correspondence and other papers. It roughly corresponds with his lifetime, 1743-1826.
    • Date: 1743
  • Article
    1743 to 1774 April 13, 1743 (April 2, Old Style)* Thomas Jefferson is born at Shadwell plantation in Goochland (later Albemarle) County, Virginia, to Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor, and Jane Randolph, daughter of a prominent Virginia family.
  • Article
    1774 to 1783 July 1774 Jefferson drafts instructions for the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress. In the draft, Jefferson argues that Parliament has no governing rights over the colonies and asserts that the colonies have been independent since their founding. He describes the usurpations of power and deviations from law committed by King George III as well as by Parliament. Jefferson is not present in...
  • Article
    1784 to 1789 The Early Republic March 1, 1784 Jefferson submits to Congress his Report of a Plan of Government for the Western Territory, establishing procedures for the entrance of new states. In it, Jefferson proposes that slavery be abolished in new states by 1800. Congress rejects this part of the plan and passes the revised Ordinance April 23. Jefferson blames Southern representatives for Congress's rejection of...
  • Article
    1790 to 1799 The Early Republic, 1790-1799 1790 February 23. Jefferson's daughter Martha (Patsy) marries her second cousin Thomas Mann Randolph at Monticello. They live at Edgehill, an estate two miles from Monticello.
  • Article
    1800 to 1809 The Early Republic, 1800-1809 February 1800 While in Philadelphia, Jefferson learns that his lifelong body servant and slave, Jupiter, has died. Jupiter had fallen ill but insisted on accompanying Jefferson in his travels. Unable to continue, and left in Fredericksburg, Virginia to recuperate, Jupiter had returned home to Monticello, where he died.
  • Article
    1810 to 1827 The Early Republic, 1810-1827 July 15, 1813 John Adams writes Jefferson that it would be a shame for them to die without having explained themselves to each other. Adams and Jefferson correspond for about three years, during which they review the events of the Revolution and range over a variety of political and philosophical issues. During 1811-12, a mutual friend Dr. Benjamin Rush of...
  • Article
    Virginia Records, 1606-1737 Descriptions of the twenty-one volumes of colonial Virginia records once owned by Thomas Jefferson, now at the Library of Congress, and how to find and use them online.
    • Date: 1606
  • Article
    The Beginning, Progress, and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, In the Years 1675 and 1676 The Beginning, PROGRESS, AND CONCLUSION of BACON'S REBELLION in VIRGINIA, In the Years 1675 and 1676.
  • Article
    Virginia Records Timeline: 1553 to 1743 The Library of Congress owns twenty-one manuscript volumes of seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Virginia colonial records that were originally part of Jefferson’s personal library. Half of these are in the Manuscript Division with Jefferson’s papers, and the remainder are in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. This timeline covering early Virginia history is meant to illuminate the period documented in these volumes.
    • Date: 1553
  • Article
    1553 to 1599 1553 The London Company of Merchant Adventurers of England for the Discovery of Lands Unknown is organized. An "adventurer" is a business investor who "ventures" capital. The Company supports Sir Hugh Willoughby and his ship pilot, Richard Chancellor, in their attempt to find a northern sea route from England to Cathay (China) and the Spice Islands (Moluccas). The Company provides a model for future...
  • Article
    1600 to 1609 1603 Queen Elizabeth I dies. James I succeeds her.
  • Article
    1610 to 1619 1610 Sir Thomas Gates is deputy governor until the arrival of Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, the newly appointed governor of Jamestown.
  • Article
    1620 to 1629 1620 January 20. The Virginia Company dissolves the Magazine, a subsidiary company formed to supply the colony, which has fallen into desperate financial straits. Thereafter, free trade prevails in the supply of the colony.
  • Article
    1640 to 1699 1640 The Virginia government at Jamestown passes statutes and codes that differentiate between white indentured servants and blacks in permanent servitude. By the 1680s, permanent servitude has become even more identified with race.
  • Article
    1700 to 1743 1707 - 1708 Thomas Jefferson II has a son, Peter, who will be the father of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. Peter has two older brothers, one of whom, Thomas III, born in 1700, dies at the age of twenty-three.