The founders · people, ideas & disagreements
Meet the minds.
Begin with eight illustrated profiles. Then explore a core index of the people who signed the Declaration or attended the Constitutional Convention.
1776 and 1787 are different chapters. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams helped shape the founding, but neither attended the 1787 Convention. Dissenters such as George Mason belong in the story too.
Eight starting portraits
What did each person bring?
The wider circle
One index.
Many contributions.
56 Declaration signers + 55 Convention attendees, with eight people in both groups: 103 unique people. This core roster is a starting point; influence extended far beyond it.
103 people in this view
John Adams
MassachusettsDeclaration advocate; diplomat in Britain during the Convention
George Clymer
PennsylvaniaThomas Fitzsimons
PennsylvaniaBenjamin Franklin
PennsylvaniaElbridge Gerry
MassachusettsNathaniel Gorham
MassachusettsAlexander Hamilton
New YorkThomas Jefferson
VirginiaDeclaration author; minister in France during the Convention
Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer
MarylandWilliam Samuel Johnson
ConnecticutJames Madison Jr.
VirginiaWilliam Livingston
New JerseyGeorge Mason
VirginiaRobert Morris
PennsylvaniaGouverneur Morris
PennsylvaniaCharles Pinckney
South CarolinaCharles Cotesworth Pinckney
South CarolinaGeorge Read
DelawareRoger Sherman
ConnecticutRichard Dobbs Spaight
North CarolinaGeorge Washington
VirginiaHugh Williamson
North CarolinaJames Wilson
PennsylvaniaGeorge Wythe
VirginiaThe index identifies participation and links to records. A full study of each person’s beliefs will require their dated writings; the index alone does not establish those beliefs.
Voices beyond the Convention
Who else belongs in the story?
Abigail Adams’s March 31, 1776 letter asks about the position of women in new laws. Read it beside the founding’s promises, and then follow the long interval to the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.