Appropriating Thomas Jefferson, 1929-1945

This study counters the view that Franklin D. Roosevelt hegemonically exalted Thomas Jefferson to iconic dominance during the Great Depression. It analyzes the diversity of those who appropriated Jefferson to find answers to the socio-economic crisis and modern industrial capitalism. This discourse analysis, spanning the ideological spectrum between 1929–1945, reveals that the creation of the Jefferson icon—in various forms of representation—generated counterhegemonic varieties of Jefferson because the appropriators grafted their values onto the historical figure which led to its transformation. These competing versions of Jefferson expressed a reformed sense of national values not only through commonalities but through the flexibility of interpretative and representational differences.