Morris County - Madison - “Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Mail.”

Tuesday, September 18 – Morris County Madison Historical Society Presents “Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Mail.” On Tuesday, September 18, Dr. Barbara Oberg will speak at the Madison Historical Society on the “Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Mail.” Dr. Oberg’s presentation will take place in the Chase Room of the Madison Public Library beginning at 7:15 PM. Light refreshments will be available from 7:00. The presentation is open to the public, and there is no admission charge. Dr. Oberg’s will discuss what we learn from reading Jefferson’s correspondence, which is what she says her job as the General Editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson has been about. As she observes, “Some of those he got when he was President were absolutely nutty; some were very serious, as he wrote about the early days of the American nation; some are personal and very touching.”     The Thomas Jefferson Papers was the nation's first major project in modern historical editing. The project was initiated in 1943 by the Thomas Jefferson Bicentennial Commission on the occasion of the bicentennial of Jefferson's birth. Julian P. Boyd, then chief librarian of Princeton University and a scholar of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, served as the project’s first general editor. Under the auspices of the History Department, the Papers have been divided into two series: chronological and topical. The first volume of The Papers was released in 1950.   Dr. Oberg s served as the project’s fourth general editor.      Dr. Barbara Oberg is a professor at Princeton University and general editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Earlier in her career she was the editor of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin at Yale. Dr. Oberg is widely published, serving as coauthor ofFederalists Reconsidered and Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture.     Her current project is a book titled, America in the Age of Franklin and Jefferson. Dr. Oberg earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley and her Masters and Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Barbara.