So wrote Thomas Jefferson in a 1787 letter.
A century and a half later, 50 American women, self-fashioned patriots, chained themselves to cherry trees to prevent a tyranny that Jefferson would never have predicted: bulldozers dead-set on uprooting hundreds of said trees. Why would these mechanical tyrants do such a thing? Easy: to commemorate Thomas Jefferson.
In November 1938, these women chained themselves to cherry trees in southwest Washington, D.C to protest the construction of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. 88 of these beautiful trees were to face the wrath of marauding bulldozers, and these women sparked what is now known as the “Cherry Tree Rebellion” in order to save these Washington icons.
But why were the cherry trees planted there in the first place?
