Thomas Jefferson Writing the Declaration of Independence

In 1897 Scribner’s Magazine commissioned Pyle to create twelve illustrations to accompany a year-long serialization of Henry Cabot Lodge’s “Story of the Revolution.”
Here Pyle shows Thomas Jefferson as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

The text does not describe Jefferson's surroundings. Pyle's heroic figure illuminated by candlelight at a small desk evokes the historian's text: "Jefferson was setting forth the reasons for a revolution, asserting a great, new principle for which men were to be asked to die. His task was to make it all as simple, yet as splendid as possible... Jefferson uttered, in a noble and enduring manner, what was stirring in the hearts of his people."