An Evening With Thomas Jefferson, In The Flesh
Time travel is a perennial fascination. Where would you go? Who would you meet? The website Ranker places Thomas Jefferson in the top ten of popular figures, just behind Winston Churchill and ahead of John Kennedy.
Our guest in this episode of Speakers Forum is adept at a kind of time travel. Clay Jenkinson inhabited the role of President Thomas Jefferson at Town Hall Seattle on November 22. He was joined by the Saint Michael Trio for a performance of chamber music popular during Jefferson’s lifetime, including works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, who were Jefferson’s contemporaries.
Jenkinson is an author, humanities scholar and host of the syndicated radio program The Thomas Jefferson Hour. A co-founder of the modern Chautauqua movement, Jenkinson has also portrayed Sir Francis Bacon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Theodore Roosevelt, and Meriwether Lewis. He appears in Seattle annually as a longtime friend of the Seattle Public Library.
The event was presented by the Seattle Public Library as part of its 2014 McLellan/O’Donnell Living History Series. Thanks to Town Hall Seattle for this recording.
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John O'Brien
Producer
John O’Brien is a KUOW newsroom producer. He works with the Morning Edition and All Things Considered teams to schedule, record, and edit interviews and stories on a variety of topics, from politics and public health to arts and culture. He learned to make radio in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation and is a former host of KUOW's Speakers Forum.
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