Thank you, Yale University Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America, by Christia Dierksheide.

The first two chapters were about Jefferson’s grandson-in-law and his personal secretary in the 1820s who then became the executor of his estate. Neither of their stories were that interesting.

The book got better when it moved to the issues of slavery and race. That’s where you could really see Jefferson’s influence. The two grandsons who were portrayed, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and Merriweather Lewis Randolph also turned out to be people of low character, just like grandpa. Then, the chapters on Jefferson and Sally Hemmings’s son, Madison, and their grandson, J.W. Jefferson, were the two most interesting chapters in the book.

I give this book a B+.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I finished reading this on November 7, 2024.

Jefferson has been studied frequently, and so it takes something unique to stand out, this book takes on the Hemings’ scandal and looks at the aftermath in a new way. A worthy addition to the Jefferson academia.

I was intrigued by the idea of viewing the growth of the early republic through the lens of Thomas Jefferson. More than just the third president, Jefferson was a well traveled man of the Enlightenment and of personal contradiction. His descendants are the direct result of this contradiction and yet so much more than the shadow of Monticello. Through Joseph Coolidge, Jefferson's grandson-in-law, the author explores U.S. imperial entry into China, and how Coolidge became an agent for banned British traders and eventually caught in the middle of the Opium War. Jefferson's other grandson-in-law Nicholas Trist became a federal scapegoat while trying to settle a "peace" agreement during the U.S. invasion of Mexico. Madison and Eston Hemings, strove to maintain their identity while protecting their families in a mercurial world outside of Virginia. On the other hand J.W. Jefferson, born Hemings, chose to "pass" and became a captain for the Union.

It's an interesting premise, and I can't fault the author for being passionate and engaging, but I feel like there are two books fighting for space. One is a book about 19th c. America's "imperial exploits," the pre-Civil War decline of the South, etc. The other is a book on Jefferson's grandchildren and immediate great-grandchildren. It's true that the 19th c. was an explosion of war and expansion, but when relating greater events, the subjects are often lost. There needed to be a few pages in between each chapter to "set the scene" first so the reader isn't overwhelmed. Each chapter reads like a stand-alone vignette, a short glimpse into the life of the select subjects; but it leaves you wanting more. The contrast between their lives is obvious without structurally dividing the book. This also created a misleading and confusing timeline. To be fair, I will read anything about Jefferson - I wrote my senior thesis on the man - but do not dive in without reading Annette Gordon Reed's book or some family history first.

"Beyond Jefferson" is an academic monograph focusing on the descendants of the third president of the U.S., Thomas Jefferson, who had children both with his wife Martha and later with her half-sister Sally Hemings who was an enslaved woman in his household. It is difficult to warm to Jefferson, who "openly acknowledged Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston [his children with Sally] as his property, but never as his family."

My first impression of this book was its elegance: in writing style, structure and appearance. The author, historian Christa Dierksheide, highlights how Jefferson used the phrase "equal & independent" twice in a working draft of the Declaration of Independence, and the book explores the shifting meanings of these terms for his descendants during the long 19th century. Her intention is to use this complex, multi-generational family history to illuminate broader historical themes, and to argue that "the American Revolution did not end in 1783 - it remained a contested and protracted struggle that lasted well into the nineteenth century."

While this is a scholarly work, in tone and ambition, it was the storytelling and the micro-level of family history - the portraits, anecdotes, telling details and idiosyncratic life paths - which I found most absorbing. For example, after Jefferson's death, his grandson-in-law, Nicolas Trist, "shelled out about $16 for odds and ends, including a writing table and a 'shower bath'" from his estate. This quote by Jefferson's son Madison Hemings also stood out: "I learned to read by inducing the white children to teach me the letters and something more."

Madison is the only one of Sally Hemings' children to have their own chapter, and the others are described rather dismissively at one point (via a quote by descendant Shay Banks-Young): "The other siblings - Harriet, Beverly, and Eston - 'either went white and passed through' or the 'name was changed.'" (p.140). I would have been interested to read more about them (and in fairness, there is more detail about Eston in the final chapter which focuses on his son, J.W. Jefferson, during the Civil War era). My impression is that there are only fragments of information available about Harriet Hemings, but it might have spoken to the impetus/ethos of the book to include a chapter focused on her. What might "equal & independent" have meant to her? This is not to diminish, or under-estimate, the skill and considerable achievement of 'Beyond Jefferson' as it stands. It is a compelling and ambitious work.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.