Is there a polygraph at monticello?

Answer 1

Yes, but not in the common sense of a (lie detector) Jefferson"s polygraph was a device for manifold signatures- which would be useful to a politician, predicatbly in the days before typewriters and other officer machines. a device along these lines was out in the Reign of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. It had the usual baroque fantasy trappings of such devices at the time- the tone arm controlling the pen having engraved angel or cupid figures. This device was called the Schreibsmachine- which is the regular German word for (Typewriter) device was totally unlike modern typerwriters.