Visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Private Personal Retreat — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, May 13 2025
Kicking off his 2025 transcontinental Lewis and Clark trek, Clay spends the day at Poplar Forest, the beloved personal retreat of Thomas Jefferson, the mastermind behind the famous Corps of Discovery.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Delightful Ignorance: Jefferson and the American West
Monday, May 12 2025
Clay begins his 2025 Lewis and Clark transcontinental journey in the land of Thomas Jefferson, the patron saint of the famous 1804-1806 expedition.
- Published in Features
A Word About Dictionaries
Sunday, April 20 2025
A short dissertation on my infatuation with dictionaries.
- Published in Books
LTA Exclusive: Historic Portraits of Native American Activist Leonard Peltier
Saturday, March 29 2025
Earlier this year, President Biden commuted the prison sentence of Leonard Peltier. This week, noted “wet plate” photographer Shane Balkowitsch visited Peltier at Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where he took a series of historical portraits of the 80-year-old Native American activist. Balkowitsch’s portraits of Peliter are published here for the first time.
- Published in Features
My Melting Hour at San Juan Hill
Monday, March 17 2025
A not-so-rough rider, Clay gave a historical presentation as Teddy Roosevelt during a recent visit to Santiago, Cuba.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Visit to Little Havana’s Bay of Pigs Museum
Friday, February 28 2025
Before setting off for Cuba this week on a cultural tour of the island nation, Clay and his guests stopped in at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana, Miami.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Annexation of Cuba (And More)
Tuesday, February 25 2025
The United States has a long, tortured relationship with Cuba, including Thomas Jefferson’s imperial designs on the island. As Clay travels to Cuba this week to lead a cultural tour, he reflects on a bit of forgotten history between the U.S. and the island nation 90 miles from Key West, Florida.
- Published in Features
Word From Our European Friends, February 2025
Tuesday, February 18 2025
Clay Jenkinson spent 10 days in Europe in early February, read the English language magazines and newspapers, conferred with old friends and new in England, France, and Switzerland, and attempted to assess the mood of Europe as the second Trump administration began. Here is his report.
- Published in Features
Pushing “Send” From Somewhere Under the English Channel
Tuesday, February 11 2025
Amazing Engineering Grace: The Brave New World we take for granted. Clay reports from “The Chunnel” traveling between England and France.
- Published in Features
The Cuban Missile Crisis, John Steinbeck, and the Nobel Prize — October 1962
Tuesday, February 04 2025
In preparation for a cultural tour of Cuba Clay will lead later this month, he came across a surprising connection between John Steinbeck, Adlai Stevenson, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Published in Features