THE ELLEN COOLIDGE LETTER

This handwritten letter by Ellen Randolph Coolidge, granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, was written 24 October 1858 to her husband. From Ellen Coolidge LetterBook, University of Virginia Alderman Library.

The Ellen Coolidge letter was first released to the public through Dumas Malone in the New York Times on May 18, 1974.

The Ellen Coolidge letter was transcribed by Annette Gordon-Reed in her book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, published in 1997.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings was released in January, 2000, using the transcription from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy.

The Ellen Coolidge letter was transcribed in The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty, published in 2001. This Ellen Coolidge letter transcription notes the errors in the transcription published in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, and in the Monticello Research Committee Report. The most significant is the altered version of the sentence, "No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be there and none could have entered without being exposed to the public gaze." This was changed to, "No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be in the public gaze."