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Thomas Jefferson |
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Thomas Jefferson |
To a group of Nobel Prize winners attending a White House dinner,
President Kennedy made this toast: "I think this is the most
extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been
gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas
Jefferson dined alone."
He had a curious mind, was inspired by the greatness of others, and believed in sharing the knowledge he acquired with the rest of humanity. Although Thomas Jefferson is most well known for being a Founding Father and President, he was also a practical scientist, an inventor. He loved gadgets that saved time and labor and if nothing had been invented to serve his purpose, he drew up plans and had local craftsmen make the object of his imagination. |
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Jefferson invented a wide variety of devices from an improved wooden plow to a folding ladder to a code-breaking cipher wheel used in time of war (a similar device was developed by the US Army during WWI). But he never applied for patents on any of his numerous inventions because he believed "that so called original ideas were really the product of collective achievements." In spite of his principles, he supervised the US Patent Act of 1789 which set in motion a feverish inventive spirit in the American people that knew no bounds. | |
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You might think that Jefferson also invented flip-flop thinking because of his many contradictory personal and political beliefs. He was a slave owner yet wrote about the freedom and equality of all men. He distrusted cities and considered the self-sufficient, independent minded farmer to be the ideal American citizen but the improvements he made in farming helped to hasten the coming of industry. He had the ability to see a more perfect world than the one he actually lived in and like so many great thinkers, he longed for progress but feared it at the same time. |
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Jefferson's personal ambitions seemed to know no bounderies. He was also an architect and designed several public buildings as well as his estate, Monticello. He was inspired by ancient Roman architecture and felt that this building style with its dignity and strength was the ideal expression of the new American nation he had helped to create politically. |
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And in his spare time he was a commercial nailmaker. He set up his nailery while building his estate in 1794. It operated continuously for about 20 years, then intermitently until the end of his life. At the peak of its operation, a ton and a half of nails were turned out every month. |
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Maybe the reason we expect so much from our Presidents in and out of office (and those who choose to run for the job) is because we got so much in the past. Jefferson could dine alone in the White House or Monticello because he never forgot how to think collectively. -LP |
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