Chapter One

Chapter One: Mr. Peterman’s Shirt

Jefferson disliked stuffy people, stuffy houses, stuffy societies. So he changed a few things: Law. Gardening. Government. Architecture.

Of the thousand castles, mansions, chateaux you can walk through today, only Monticello, only Jefferson’s own mansion, makes you feel so comfortable you want to live in it.
—J. Peterman Company

Thomas Jefferson did wear simple and comfortable shirts like the one that inspired a clever advertising copywriter for the J. Peterman Company’s retail catalogue. The claim that the style is “99% Thomas Jefferson, 1% Peterman”[1] may stretch the truth. Simple muslin work shirts were as common among Jefferson’s Virginia contemporaries as they were inside the great house at Monticello. Still, the rest of the copywriter’s pitch rings true.

Jefferson was an inventor.

He liked comfort.

And he did change a few things.

In 1776 Jefferson’s words declared American independence and encouraged a candid world to hope that all men were created equal. Ten years later his Statute for Religious Freedom summoned Virginians to insist that “Almighty God hath created the mind free.” Jefferson calculated the most efficient shape for the blade, or moldboard, of a plow. He modeled a new capitol for the commonwealth of Virginia, based on an ancient Roman temple, that established the classical revival as the standard for American public architecture. At Monticello he devised a mechanism, hidden beneath the floor between the entrance hall and parlor, to open both French doors simultaneously when either door was pushed. In the valley belo