A note to the reader
About this edition
A conversation with my mom, one paper at a time.
How a weekly gift to my mom became a standing conversation between us—and the family thread running through the reading.
This edition began with a gift for my mom. I gave her a subscription to LetterJoy’s Federalist Papers series, which sends one paper each week on 1780s-inspired newsprint. As she opened them at home, I started following along online.
What might have become a dutiful march through a famous book became something much better: a standing conversation between us. The weekly rhythm makes each argument feel less like a monument and more like what it first was—a public letter meant to be read, considered, and talked over.
A family thread through the founding
Charles Thomson · Secretary of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789
The reading has another personal connection. Charles Thomson was my sixth-great-uncle—my mom’s fifth-great-uncle. At ten years old, he arrived in America with no parents and no money. His mother had died in Ireland; his father died during the Atlantic crossing, and the brothers were separated after they landed. From that beginning, Thomson rose to become the only Secretary of the Continental Congress, serving from its first meeting in 1774 until the new federal government began in 1789.
Thomson’s and John Hancock’s were the two names printed on the Dunlap broadside—the Declaration of Independence’s first published form, dispatched throughout the states and to Washington’s army before the famous parchment was engrossed and signed. The parchment became the enduring national icon; Thomson’s attestation appeared on the version that first carried independence into American public life.
And that was only one chapter. Thomson helped bring the Great Seal of the United States to its final design, personally carried word of George Washington’s unanimous election to Mount Vernon, and later spent nearly twenty years translating the Septuagint Bible from Greek into English—the first published English translation of the ancient Greek Old Testament. The penniless ten-year-old orphan grew into a man who helped give the new nation its public words, its emblem, and its institutional memory. That is a remarkable family thread for my mom and me to feel as we read these arguments together.
History in the room
Nothing substitutes for the real thing.
We are fortunate to know Seth Kaller, one of the country’s leading experts in original American documents. On July 5, 2026, Mom and I visited The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation at the South Street Seaport Museum, an extraordinary exhibition curated by Seth and the museum.
The moment in this photograph could hardly have been more personal: Seth was showing Mom a historic printing of the Declaration of Independence carrying the printed signature of Charles Thomson—her fifth-great-uncle. We had read about Thomson’s place in the founding. Here it was, in ink and paper, directly in front of us.
This site can make the Federalist Papers inviting, but no screen can reproduce the scale, texture, survival, and sheer presence of an original document. If The Promise of Liberty—or any exhibition of original historical material—comes near you, go see it. And if you find yourself wanting to bring a piece of history home, Seth’s collection is a fascinating place to begin.
Their words, clearly set
The essays retain their original wording. Modern type, comfortable spacing, and a clean Reader option make them easier on contemporary eyes. The newspaper view is atmosphere, not a claim that every rule and column exactly reproduces one historic printing.
A companion, not a lecture
Each paper has a short plain-language note: the argument in a nutshell, its key moves, why it mattered, and a question worth discussing. Historical details appear when they add color or make the stakes clearer—not simply because they are available.