Many aspects of daily life. That includes food, socializing and science. The u. S. Capital Historical Society provided video of this event. Today is the inaugural scholar series. We thought we would start with our own. Hes really one of the nations finest scholars on the First Congress. And the early period in the development of our country. We have been fortunate to have chuck as part of the u. S. Cbs society team for five years prior. Prior to that he was working on the First Congress program. He has put together a very imaginative presentation using primary sources like letters of the times. Where people wrote to one another about the science, the food, the culture and the back and forth that made early days in washington. That being said, we invite you to stay with us for your questions and answers. Chuck will do his presentation and i will work through the questions. We have a couple of questions. We may be able to do a couple of questions during the presentation, but the majority of our questions will be at the conclusion of the presentation. So please put your questions in and i will try to work them through both at the end and as we move forward. Thank you very much, chuck, for the work youve done to put this together and welcome to the platform. Welcome everyone, im really happy you can we can pull this off. As jane said, im going into an imaginative story. Just let your minds go. Its not a straightforward narrative. Were going to touch a lot of points. The point of departure, for me, came with the publication of my book. I will show here. Some of you have seen it before. Its my book on George Thatcher. I edited a volume of his letters. The point of departure for me was his attendance at the second session, the last session of the sixth congress. George thatcher was a member of the congress through the last few years of the confederation period. The first six congress is under the federal government, under the u. S. Constitution. He comes to washington when the federal government moves here in 1800. He arrives at the state of government from maine with his fellow main congressman. For many new england years in particular, this exposure to washington, d. C. Is their first exposure to rural slavery. A few days before the opening of the last session of the sixth congress, the first session to meet in washington, d. C. , this isnt in late 1800, he writes the ground as you approach george town is excellent for roads. It is red coarse gravel, but isnt bad repair for a reason of many goalies. He was ive been exhibited to the precious effects of slavery. Soil over tailed. Tattered inhabitants speak of richness and whoa. But the capital, one of the capital . It is a high though magnificent pile. It is one wing of the original design. The body and another wing is only appeared to the imagination from the view of the foundation which is laid in stone and lime. You can see that in this illustration here. This is the capital that George Thatcher and his roommate, both from maine, appear at the end of the century. Its november 1800 when they convene. They actually meet here. I show this because not many people get to see this image. This is a blueprint of the main floor of the capitol at that time when Congress First moves in. The senate was down below where the Old Supreme Court chamber is now. The gallery is depicted here. The house of representatives is actually meeting where the library of congress was going to eventually be meeting. In the third session, im sorry, there is no third session. In the seventh congress, George Thatcher decides hes been reelected, hes the only congressman to be reelected this often at that point in congressional history. Maine was part of massachusetts at that time, so he gives up his seat in congress and his roommate is now representing maine or massachusetts rather with nathan reid who you see on the right here. Nathan reid was a scientist from salem, massachusetts. He starts out as in the pocket there. He actually applied for patents from congress before hes elected there in 1800. He only serves this one session. All three resided in a boarding house. The seventh congress meets and thatcher is gone. Reads roommate is now irreverent. Hes a congregation minister from hamilton, massachusetts. Thats northern massachusetts. Hes an every man. Hes a lawyer, is a merchant, hes a subject of david mccaul is the latest book on the development of the ohio country. Hes one of the main lobbyists for the ohio company that promotes settlement of the ohio river valley. From now on, most of the letters and most of the voices we will be hearing our nathan reid and monastic cuddler. Fortunately for us, they both left voluminous records of their ridings and other letters. Beside being caused leagues, they are colleagues specialty. They actually can have it the same boarding house room. If you can see my cursor, its right here. Its where the library of Congress Jefferson building sits now. Those of you who are antiquarians of the seat know this is carolyn road. This is a boarding house run by joe size king. This is the way that it is described. This is the first session out of the seventh congress. This is the first entire congress that is calling washington, d. C. Home. Color writes about life on carroll road. It is situated east of the capital on the highest round in the city. Mr. Read and myself have the most pleasant room in the house, and indeed the whole city. It is on the third story demanding a review of also houses on the city as well as the city of alexandria and the river. I must add that i am exceedingly happy with mr. Read. Where i have made to choose someone to live with me, i wouldve chosen mr. Read. Im not much pleased with the capital. It is a huge pile built with handsome stone. Bright heavy in appearance but not very pleasant within. They were looking out their window toward the capital, this is what they would be seeing. The senate north chamber on the right side. The odd structure is called the oven. Some of you may have seen images of it before. None of them would have been contemporary. These are all reconstructed because we do not know exactly what it looked like. Aside from verbal descriptions. They are connected with the central part of the building by this walkway where their worst airways and previous into the gallery. They stay there through the seventh congress up to the first session of the eight congress in 1804. I will be using the words of these three men. All these things are spinoffs of my book on thatcher. I was curious that once that shirt leaves congress, what happened to the federalist congressman from massachusetts, New Hampshire and the other New England States were left behind to carry on the federalist fight . I wanted to see how they dealt with defeat. From that chronological episode, i teased out for themes. They all cover, its kind of micro history, i teased them out of their records of the first three or four days of 1802. During the first session of the seventh congress. I began to realize that what they are talking about is basically the politicization of everything. Were talking about sociability, food, science and historical memory. Those are the four themes i will be teasing out of here. The first one is sociability. The social life in washington revolves around the white house. The white house is new occupant was Thomas Jefferson at this point. He had been inaugurated in march of 1801. We all know from jeffersons first inaugural, where he says we are all federalists. We are all republicans. He is trying to conciliate all parties. What he really meant was, we are all republicans. The federalists just dont know it yet. Hes not naive. He realizes the federalists need special treatment. One way he does this is to use one of the greatest informal resources at his disposal. Thats the white house social life. Right away, it sets up a contrast with his predecessors one of the federalist republican court. This is a highly exaggerated in the 19th century view of what Martha Washingtons levies looked like. Jefferson is more democratic. He writes color to his soninlaw, on the 4th of january 1802, just a few days in the deception. He writes, under the new order of things, there are no levies. Nothing like this. But the members who are invited to dine with the president and rotation. The dining room on the upper left that you can see is where these events would have taken place. Only federalists or only democrats are invited at the same time. The number in a day is generally eight. When the federalists are invited, theres one of the heads of departments which make nine. Mr. Read myself were honored with an early invitation. We enjoyed ourselves very well. We were handsomely received and entertained. Jefferson wanted to create this idea of having a very informal white house. One of the images to illustrate this is one of these portraits. Jeffersons study is depicted. Its this room right here. Its the Southwest Corner of what is today the state dining room. You can see it is filled with parent paraphernalia of his scientific interests and studies. The idea is that jefferson is trying to de politicize is dinners. Jefferson hates conflict. Hes very much into conflict avoidance. No politics were to be discussed at his dinner table. My friend and colleague wrote about this. By trying to defuse the small conflicts that might erupt with members of both parties at the same table, he may have fostered deeper division. One should note that jeffersons invitations to dinner were sent out under Thomas Jefferson, not president of the United States. The idea being that he wanted to create this image of it being more democratic. It was a gathering of france, not a political meeting. Inviting people under his own name as opposed to his office of president , was an excuse to invite whoever he wished. Eventually as time goes by, we learned that he uses his dinner invitations as a way to punish members, primarily federalists. We know this from some of the words of william plummer. Plummer decided that jefferson used friendly conversation and good food and wind to bind congressman to himself and divide them from one another. And plummers own words, i have myself no doubt of this being the true ground of his adopting the present form. In the last session, there were gentleman who, though they called on him, were not invited to dine with him. We hear plumber name some highflying federalists. It is true these made these men argued against some of jeffersons favored measures. This conduct is stopped by jefferson. As president , he ought never to act toward an individual as if he knew what was said for or against him or his measures on the floor of the house. Former realizes jeffersons behavior, the way he rolled out dinner invitations. Politicization of food. Im sure some of you might just have tuned in to see what that means. In the first few days of january, 1802. In fact, on new years day, we pick up with manassaeh cutler journal. He says, although the president has no levees, a number of federalists agreed to go from the capital in coaches to the president s house and wait upon him with the compliments of the season. We were refute received with politeness and entertained with cake and wine. The mammoth cheese being presented this morning, with all the parade of democratic etiquette, the president invited us to go to the mammoth room and see the mammoth cheese. There we viewed this monument of human weakness and folly as long as we pleased and then returned home. The mammoth cheese as it was called was a gift to jefferson from the back this community of western massachusetts. In order to thank jefferson for his work promoting religious freedom. This would have been important to baptist who are a minority in most of the country in this point. Certainly new england. The cheese itself was four feet wide, 15 inches height and wait 1230 pounds. I dont have an image of the cheese. Theres no contemporary image or even any image that i know of of the cheese. We have one from a painting. This shows the big cheese that was given to andrew jackson. There is some what of a tradition at this point of giving president cheese they can host with. This is the big cheese that was presented to jackson in 1835. It was there for people to munch on for a couple of years. It looks ridiculous i think. But this cheese is in fact, at least two federalist thinking, really a symbol of jeffersonian jeffersonianism. It is gauche, it is impractical, the idea of it is driven by folly. Its a case where the idea or ideology does not always play out as planned in reality. It does not help at all that the cheese is presented by the leader of the Baptist Community in chester. This is cutler writing to his son in law after being presented with the cheese. Last sunday, the cheesemonger, pour ignorant clownish preacher, who is the conductor of this monument of human weakness and folly, was introduced as the preacher to both houses of congress and a great number of gentlemen and ladies from i know not where. The president , contrary to all form of practice, made one of the audience. Such a performance ive never heard before and hope never shall again. Such a fair ego was never heard by any decent auditory before. Shame were laughter appeared in every countenance. This is the guy who presented the cheese. So whatever glamour the cheese may have brought or added to jeffersons white house soon began to lose its luster as it increased with its aroma presumably. When youre later, on new years eve 1803, cutler writes again, after we left the living room, as we were passing through the great hall, i happened to think of the mammoth cheese. I asked one of the servants whether it was still in the mammoth room . By the way, the mammoth room is the east room today. He replied his was and i might see if i pleased. I went with a member who wished for another look at it. The president just told us that 60 pounds had been taken out of the middle inconsequence of the popping up and symptoms of decay. In case youre wondering what happened to the mound cheese. Plummer writes about it two years later in december, 1804. At that point, it was far from being good. It was last seen a year later in 1805. It was either totally consumed by that point or, some scholars believe it was dumped in the river. I want to talk about the word mammoth here. When cuddler wrote, to the mammoth room and see the mammoth cheese, he bothered to put that in quotes because he was quoting jefferson verbatim. He said it off of quotes because, it was a very novel use of the expression mammoth. Imagine my surprise. I went to the Oxford English dictionary and found that when it credited jefferson with coining the term mammoth. People have picked up on this terminology as an adjective or something huge, weird, exotic, gauche, serving no practical purpose. Imagine, who needs 1200 pound cheese . But its not a perfectly politically neutral word either. In time, this word would come to enjoy yourself for the widespread usage an impact that the word atomic atomic would have in the 20th century. What are the origins of the adjective of mammoth . The noun mammoth was a phenomenon and historians began to recognize as Thomas Jeffersons hobby words. Thomas jefferson imagined himself as a scientist among other things. Scientists had to have for allied jackets of course. For most of his public life, jefferson is interested in science and away they can refute the arguments made famously by a french philosopher. Insisted on a theory of american degeneracy. The megafauna found in the western hemisphere are essentially inferior to those found in other parts of the globe. They degenerate on the side of the globe. For jefferson, it became a patriotic article of faith that americans had megafauna at least as mega as erupted. We see this in notes from the state of virginia. , theres an expedition beyond the mississippi in order to make notes on the mammoth you may find their. The mammoth is particularly recommended to inquiries. Of course, ten years later, he says that loosened clark with similar instructions on their famous expedition to the west. Needless to say, jefferson is really excited when, in the summer 1801, Charles Wilson appeal is told about mammoth bones in the hudson river valley. By the way, its not always called mammoth. Sometimes it appears as the word incognito because they did not know what it was. However, they did have some bones. He hired a couple dozen men and red this contraption to dig out the remnants of the skeleton. Jefferson is calling it mammoth, although we know that is of 1806, the mammoth is not a mammoth at all, but a new species in entirely. He names at the mask down because of its deep. Mammoths were found further west. Lewis finds evidence of them in the ohio valley. The east coast variety comes to be known as the mastodon. This painting is quickly renamed, the exhumation of the mastodon. On christmas eve, 1801. It is erected in the headquarters of the American Philosophical Society of america. The skeleton ends up in Independence Hall where museum is eventually opened. You see it in the background on the right, partially hidden by the drapery. Despite its obvious scientific significance, the federalist followed jeffersons lead as using it as a symbol. It became a buy word for jefferson political quackery. Sorry it became by word for democratic access in all its manifestations. Within days, fodder lists are calling the Jefferson Administration the mammoth incumbent. Two years later, plummer writes how the word is used in a different context but with the same intent. The baker of the navy erected in oven and baked a mammoth low. This low was later on brought on the shoulders of men and carried to the capital and lodged in a Committee Room near adjoining to the senate chamber. A large sirloin of roasted beef and casks of wine, cider and whiskey were provided and deposited in the same place. At 12 00, the chamber was crowded with people of all classes and colors, from the president of the United States to the meanest and violence virginia slave. Mr. Jefferson took his jackknife from his pocket and cut and eight of the beef and bread and drink of the liquors. He compared this drunken frolic to the sacrament of the lords supper. We can imagine what that is doing to new england federalists. The skeleton meanwhile, just like the word ma