In 1944, the Jefferson Memorial Fund was established by the will of Elizabeth Bonestell in her name and the name of her husband, Cutler L. Bonestell, for the study and promotion of a loyal and enlightened adherence by young people to the basic principles of American democracy as embodied in the Constitution. The fund supports an annual series of lectures on topics concerned with Jefferson or his times, with the development of the American governmental system, or with civil liberties and the Jeffersonian tradition. Lecturers have delivered Jefferson Memorial Lectures on early American history, on Jefferson himself, and on American institutions and policies in politics, economics, education, and law.
| Title | Lecturer | Year |
| American Thanatocracy vs Abolition Democracy: On Cops, Capitalism, and the War on Black Life | Robin D. G. Kelley | 2024 |
| Constructing a Republican Executive | Michael W. McConnell | 2023 |
| A Liberalism That Builds | Ezra Klein in Conversation with Amy Lerman | 2023 |
| American Democracy and the Crisis of Majority Rule | Daniel Ziblatt | 2023 |
| Weaponizing Narratives: Why America Wants Gun Control But Doesn’t Have It | Gary Younge | 2020 |
| State Courts and School Desegregation: New Perspectives on Judicial Federalism and the Myth of Parity | Associate Justice Goodwin Liu | 2019 |
| Prison Abolition, and a Mule | Paul Butler | 2019 |
| Defending Liberty in the Age of Trump: Lessons from the Front | David Cole | 2018 |
| Investing in People–(Update: This Event has been Cancelled) | Michael Tubbs | 2018 |
| American Identity in the Age of Trump | George Packer | 2017 |
| Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination | Annette Gordon-Reed | 2016 |
| Federalism, Localism, and the Shape of Constitutional Conflict | Daniel B. Rodriguez | 2015 |
| The Switch: Reinventing American Freedom | John Fabian Witt | 2015 |
| The First U.S. ‘War on Terror’: The 1798 Sedition Act and Constitutional Politics in the Age of Jefferson | Charles McCurdy | 2014 |
| Were the Framers Right About Constitutional Design? The US Constitution in Comparative Perspective | Tom Ginsburg | 2014 |
| The Riddle of Sustainability: A Surprisingly Short History of the Future | William Cronon | 2013 |
| Why White People Are Called ‘Caucasian’ (Illustrated) | Nell Painter | 2013 |
| Obama, the Tea Party, and the Future of American Politics | Theda Skocpol | 2012 |
| Living with Direct Democracy: The California Supreme Court and the Initiative Power — 100 Years of Accommodation | Kathryn M. Werdegar | 2012 |
| The American Experiment: A 21st Century Assessment | Rogers M. Smith | 2011 |
| Sharia in the West? What Place for Religious Legal Systems in America and Other Democracies | John Witte, Jr. | 2011 |
| War Veterans and American Democracy | James Wright | 2010 |
| A Forum on the Experience of Veterans in American Society | James Wright | 2010 |
| Japanese American Incarceration Reconsidered: 1970-2010 | Roger Daniels | 2010 |
| An Invitation to Struggle: The Constitution, The Military, and Political Accountability | David M. Kennedy | 2009 |
| Technology, Democracy, and the Law | Steven Usselman | 2009 |
| The Mystery of Guantanamo Bay | Linda Greenhouse | 2008 |
| The War on Terror and the Rule of Law | Honorable A. Wallace Tashima | 2007 |
| The Challenges of Inequality and Global Capitalism to U.S. Democracy | Richard B. Freeman | 2007 |
| The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net | Elizabeth Warren | 2007 |
| From Thomas Jefferson to Forrest Gump: How the Mall in Washington Became the Nation’s Most Venerated Civic Space | Michael Kammen | 2007 |
| Exodus, Black Colonization, and Promised Lands | David Brion Davis | 2005 |
| Visual Democracy: Dorothea Lange and the Political Culture of the New Deal | Linda Gordon | 2004 |
| Transnational Legal Process after September 11 | Harold Hongju Koh | 2003 |
| Law, Cultural Conflict, and the Socialization of Children | Kenneth L. Karst | 2001 |
| The Third Stage: The New Frontiers of Religion and Public Life | E.J. Dionne | 2001 |
| Democracy and Liberal Education | James O. Freedman | 2001 |
| Constitutionalism and Civil Society | Stanley Katz | 2000 |
| The Making of an International Civil Society | Akira Iriye | 2000 |
| Invoking the Constitution Ineptly | Abner J. Mikva | 1999 |
| The American University: Dinosaur or Dynamo? | Frank H. T. Rhodes | 1999 |
| Property and Expropriation: Themes and Variations in American Law | Carol M. Rose | 1998 |
| The Origins of American Democracy | Gordon S. Wood | 1998 |
| The Origins of American Freedom | Eric Foner | 1998 |
| Reflections on a Life in Public Service | Alan K. Simpson | 1997 |
| Reflections of a Former Speaker | Thomas Foley | 1996 |
| Untitled | Herbert Stein | 1996 |
| Untitled | Charles Schultze | 1996 |
| Untitled | William Leuchtenberg | 1995 |
| The Separation of Powers during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson | Gerhard Casper | 1994 |
| The Spiderless Web: Exploring the History of Criminal Justice | Lawrence M. Friedman | 1994 |
| California in the World | Earl Pomeroy | 1992 |
| The Imagined Problem of U.S. Isolationism | Walter LaFeber | 1992 |
| The Tocqueville Problem | Walter LaFeber | 1992 |
| Jefferson and the Course of U.S. Foreign Policy | Walter LaFeber | 1992 |
| Governing the Marketplace: The American Revolution and the American Corporation | Pauline Maier | 1991 |
| Reconstructing American Political History | Barry D. Karl | 1991 |
| Paradoxes of Women’s Citizenship: Jury Service The Case of the Broken Baseball Bat | Linda K. Kerber | 1989 |
| Paradoxes of Women’s Citizenship: Property The Case of the Confiscated Farm | Linda K. Kerber | 1989 |
| The Fortunes of Some British Mavericks | Geoffrey P. Smith | 1989 |
| The Fortunes of Some American Mavericks | Geoffrey P. Smith | 1989 |
| Parties and Mavericks: On the Necessity of Political Parties in Anglo-American Democracies | Geoffrey P. Smith | 1989 |
| Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution | Robert R. Palmer | 1988 |
| Paradoxes of Women’s Citizenship: Military Obligation The Case of the Fired Stenographer | Linda K. Kerber | 1988 |
| Women and Democratic Citizenship: The Personal and the Political: Can Citizenship Be Democratic? | Carole Pateman | 1985 |
| Women and Democratic Citizenship: Votes for Women and Citizenship | Carole Pateman | 1985 |
| Women and Democratic Citizenship The Appeal to Reason: Early Feminism, the Individual and the Citizen | Carole Pateman | 1985 |
| Human Rights and Wrongs in the United States | Jeane J. Kirkpatrick | 1983 |
| Freedom, Equality and Democracy: Political Equality and Economic Liberty | Robert A. Dahl | 1981 |
| The Great Debate in Parliament over America, 1774-75 | Robert W. Tucker | 1981 |
| Freedom, Equality and Democracy: The Idea of Political Equality | Robert A. Dahl | 1981 |
| The Collapse of Imperial Authority | Robert W. Tucker | 1981 |
| The Imperial-Colonial Status Quo | Robert W. Tucker | 1981 |
| Origins of the American Revolution: The Imperial View | Robert W. Tucker | 1981 |
| Out of Tutelage? Europe’s Changing Attitude to America | David I. Marquand | 1981 |
| Why Reason Can’t Be Naturalized | Hilary Putnam | 1981 |
| Black Nationalism: Roots and Prospects | Eugene D. Genovese | 1980 |
| Class and Nationality | Eugene D. Genovese | 1980 |
| The Slaves as Political Actors | Eugene D. Genovese | 1980 |
| The Politics of the Slave Experience in the Old South | Eugene D. Genovese | 1980 |
| Judges and Social Policy | Nathan Glazer | 1978 |
| Ideas of Private Property in the History of America | Marcus F. Cunliffe | 1976 |
| The World’s Last Hope: Christianity With Enlightenment | Sidney E. Mead | 1974 |
| ‘True Government Must Be Christian Government’: Christianity Against Enlightenment | Sidney E. Mead | 1974 |
| Enlightenment and Revolution New Religion, New Commonwealth | Sidney E. Mead | 1974 |
| The Old Christianity in the New World | Sidney E. Mead | 1974 |
| Religion’s Experience in the Democracy | Sidney E. Mead | 1974 |
| Constitutionalism and Politicization | Archibald Cox | 1973 |
| Congress and the Court: School Desegregation | Archibald Cox | 1973 |
| Political Response: The Appointment of Justices | Archibald Cox | 1973 |
| The New Dimensions of Constitutional Adjudication | Archibald Cox | 1973 |
| The Supreme Court and the Political Process | Archibald Cox | 1973 |
| Curing the Mischief of Faction: Party Reform in America | Austin Ranney | 1973 |
| The Social History of an Idea: Equality as Theme and Variation | J. R. Pole | 1971 |
| Government and Equality in the Nineteenth Century | J. R. Pole | 1971 |
| Community and the Individual | J. R. Pole | 1971 |
| The Eighteenth Century: The Translation of Natural Rights | J. R. Pole | 1971 |
| Concepts of Equality in American History | J. R. Pole | 1971 |
| Political Change at the Grassroots: Yankee City’ Revisited (1925-1965) | H. Douglas Price | 1970 |
