Georgian Worldview: Its Definition, History, and Influence on the Material World of Thomas Jefferson

The research of this thesis has been that of two directions. The first of these attempted to both define and expand that ideological concept known as the Georgian Worldview. By referencing the opinions of current authority and by examining the very origins of this concept's many attributes this thesis would suggest that the term "Georgian" encompasses far more than symmetry in architecture alone. With this said, however, it must yet be acknowledged that architecture, and particularly the balanced and refined Palladian examples of the eighteenth century, often represented the most clearly recognizable material manifestation of this particular pervasive mind set.

The second direction of this thesis has involved the confrontation of this mental concept with data provided from the material world. In this instance, however, the late eighteenth century Jeffersonian architecture employed as an example of the influence of the former over the latter has involved not so much the architectural details and layout of his Monticello mansion, but those of the ordinary domestic and farm outbuilding that supported his Albemarle County home and plantation in central Virginia. Archival and archaeological evidence combine to suggest that even within these simple and often crude structures the shaping hand of this powerful worldview may yet be distinguished.