Monticello provided the video. We are pleased to partner with mount vernon today to bring you a special q a session with thomas jefferson, as portrayed by bill barker, and george washington, as portrayed by dean melissa. My name is melanie, and i will be moderating your questions for these founding fathers. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us today. I look forward to a fascinating conversation. Mr. Jefferson my pleasure. Thank you for being with us. I could not be the more delighted to welcome, truly, my old friend, general washington, to be in company once again. It has been a time, general. Mr. Washington it has been, sir. It is actually my pleasure and my honor to be with you, although i confess i do not rightly understand how this is happening. Mr. Jefferson i believe, general, it is because of one of the duties written explicitly in our constitution. Of the duties of the legislative one body the pursuit of science. Washington which im a strong supporter of. Our first qu
Hi there, my name is John Jefferson loony. I am the editor of the papers of Thomas Jefferson at monticello. We are here today to talk about jefferson and his correspondents. My moderator will be my esteemed colleague who will handle the questions for us. I will turn it over to her. Thanks, jeff. Can you start by telling us what is your role in working with jeffersons correspondents . Im in charge of a project to produce a total of 24 volumes between 1809 in 1826. I work with a total of 10 people to do that. Our job is to take jeffersons letters and papers and produce an authoritative addition for edition for those years that will enable future scholars to rely on that and not have to go back to the originals. So then, what exactly do you do as a documentary editor . One of the most important things is to make it clear what we arent. You hear of a documentary editor and you think either that you are creating film documentaries, and we have in fact have people apply for jobs were baffled