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Listening to America — History
Listening to America

Listening to America aims to “light out for the territories,” traveling less visited byways and taking time to see this immense, extraordinary country with fresh eyes while listening to the many voices of America’s past, present, and future.

Led by noted historian and humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, Listening to America travels the country’s less visited byways, from national parks and forests to historic sites to countless under-recognized rural and urban places. Through this exploration, Clay and team find and tell the overlooked historical and contemporary stories that shape America’s people and places. Visit our website at ltamerica.org.

Copyright: © 2023 The Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc.

Latest Episodes:

#1545 Live from Radford University May 01, 2023

Show notes

This week's episode of the Thomas Jefferson Hour was recorded live at Radford University in Radford, Virginia in February 2023.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1544 Ten Things about Woodrow Wilson Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson's conversation with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky about the 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson. Best known for his Fourteen Points and the League of Nations, Wilson was one of the most pronounced idealists among American presidents. He said he wanted to make the world safe for democracy. Meanwhile, at home, he supported some of the most repressive censorship and anti-dissident programs in the history of America. He re-segregated the U.S. government bureaucracy and came late to women's suffrage. Before the end of his second term, Wilson had a massive stroke. His second wife Edith took over and in some respects became the first female chief executive in American history.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1543 Are We Rome? Apr 17, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson's conversation with Dr. Edward Watts, professor of history at the University of California San Diego. Watts, the author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny, is a historian of the classical world or more than 2000 years ago, but his work inevitably asks the question, is the American republic in the kind of chaos and decline that led to the collapse of the Roman Republic about the time of Christ? Was the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, a harbinger of greater and more purposeful uses of political violence in our future? How much public corruption can a republic endure? We have a sense of who the Caesar might be, but where is the Cato in modern American life, or even the Cicero?

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1542 The Quest for the Wooly Mammoth Apr 10, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson's conversation with Dr. Grant Zazula, a Yukon paleontologist. Nothing seemed to have fascinated Thomas Jefferson more than the mammoth and the mastodon, to the point that his detractors ridiculed his obsession. Jefferson convinced Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to dig up mastodon bones at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky. Grant Zazula has had spectacular success gathering mammoth bones exposed by placer gold mining in the Yukon. Most recently, he was able to collect an intact mummified baby mammoth, which delighted and stunned the paleontological community. Clay had the opportunity to hear Dr. Zazula's amazing story of scientific fascination and paleontological success.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1541 Ten Things About Dolley Madison Apr 03, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson and Lindsay Chervinsky discuss the first great First Lady in American history, Dolley Madison. Topics include her attitudes towards race and slavery, her sixteen years as the principal social arbiter and hostess in the new capital in Washington, DC, her relationship with Jefferson and her husband's amazing friendship and collaboration with Jefferson. Plus, of course, that great moment when she refused to leave the White House without the Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1540 The Jeffersonians in Power Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson has a conversation with Dr. Kevin Gutzman, Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University and author of The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe held the presidency between 1800 and 1824. These three close friends and Virginia neighbors pursued a common set of public holidays. They managed to extinguish the Federalist Party and by the time Monroe began his second term, a Boston newspaper called it The Era of Good Feelings. Clay and Dr. Gutzman explore the friendship and political collaboration between Jefferson and the greatest of his proteges, James Madison, and the ways in which poor Mr. Madison had to talk Jefferson off the ledge of some of his wilder ideas about America.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1539 The Alcoholic Republic Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

Guest host Catherine Jenkinson interviews Mr. Jefferson about addiction, alcoholism, and depression in the early American republic. Jefferson explains that there were no treatment programs in his time for either mental illness or addiction. The insane asylums of the time were unspeakably horrible. Jefferson was well aware of the problems of alcoholism, because his protege Meriwether Lewis descended into substance abuse in the aftermath of the Lewis and Clark Expedition; and Jefferson's grandson-in-law, Charles Bankhead, was a drunk who physically abused his wife Anne Cary Randolph Bankhead. Jefferson's own consumption habits open the program with his usual position that moderate consumption of wine is the right approach to life.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1538 Explaining the Marshall Trilogy Mar 13, 2023

Show notes

This week, former U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon joins Clay Jenkinson to explain the famous "Marshall Trilogy," the three landmark Supreme Court cases issued by Chief Justice John Marshall between 1823 and 1832. The first, Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) incorporated the Doctrine of Discovery into American law. The second, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) declared that Native tribes represent "domestic dependent nations," more sovereign that U.S. states, but not as sovereign as, say, Canada or France. The U.S. government has a sacred trust relationship with the Native peoples of America. And the third, Worcester v. Georgia (1832), says individual states cannot intrude on the sovereignty of Native American nations--only the national government of the United States can do that. And, Tim provides an analysis of White-Indian relations on the northern plains today.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1537 Thinking about Statues and Monuments Mar 06, 2023

Show notes

This week, Clay Jenkinson and Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky discuss the movement to remove statues and monuments across the United States. Each of them offers a list of questions that should be asked whenever a monument is under fire, and things we should all keep in mind as we proceed. They highlight the George Mason monument at George Mason University, the Roosevelt statue group at the American Museum of Natural History, the Jefferson exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Stone Mountain in Georgia.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

#1536 Ten Things: Jefferson and John Marshall Feb 27, 2023

Show notes

This week Clay Jenkinson has a conversation with regular guest Lindsay Chervinsky about the first great Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall. Marshall was a Virginia Federalist, persuaded by George Washington to run for Congress and appointed Chief Justice by President John Adams in early 1801. Topics include the mutual distrust of Jefferson and his third cousin Marshall, Marshall's monumental achievement in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, Marshall and slavery, and Marshall and Native American sovereignty. Plus, Lindsay talks about her new book on how Americans have mourned their Presidents.

Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our merch.

You can find Clay's books on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics.

Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.

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