But the chairwoman of the memorial foundation's research committee, Dianne Swann-Wright, noted that President Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings' children when they were adults - a highly unusual move for the time.

BBC: Slave heirs welcome Jefferson admission

It was perhaps the revelation (or confirmation) of Jefferson's amours with his slave Sally Hemings, and more broadly the changed attitude of Americans to race, that freed them from the waxworks in which they had been imprisoned.

ECONOMIST: George Washington