Hilary and for now i am pleased to introduce tonights author and his new book the fever of 1721. Stephen coss has a bachelors degree in journalism. He has worked as an Advertising Agency copywriter and served wisconsin Election Officials when he is not working or writing. The fever of 1721 tells the history of the worst smallpox epidemic to hit boston. It set the stage for scientific advancement including the controversial but effective smallpox inoculation. The pittsburgh gazette calls this book solidly told and the wall street journal called it a deeply researched account. Please join me in welcoming stephen coss. [applause] stephen i am a wisconsin election official. I am not in wisconsin. They are having an election. I had to vote absentee. I would rather be here right now. The line of fire. Stephen exactly. That is a nonpartisan position. It is a fancy phrase for poll worker. I get to register new voters. Firsttime voters, naturalized citizens. I like it a lot. Thank you very much for that introduction. Thanks to harvard bookstore. This is my first time here. But i have heard about this store. Everybody has. It smells like a bookstore should smell and looks like a bookstore should look. I am happy and proud to be one of its guests. Thanks to book tv. I have watched it many times. It is a real pleasure to be featured on it. And of course last but no means least thank you to all of you for coming. This is my fourth live event. The first was in madison, wisconsin where i reside and i got all my friends to go and some of my wifes friends as well. Then we went to chicago. I got all of my inlaws to go. Judy has a big family. She is one of seven or eight. You think i should know by now. She got all of her family to go. We had people. Sunday i did a event at rj julia bookstore in madison, connecticut. Im from connecticut originally so i had all the mild friends going back to high school, people i have not seen in a century who i got to go there. Tonight i dont think i know any of you. That is very flattering. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. When my sister learned i would be presenting a book, promoting my book, she gave me advice. She said i suggest letting people know it is your first appearance and use it every time you speak. I would like to announce this is my first appearance, but like i said it is my fourth appearance, but my first in the general area of the town where my book takes place. That is very cool. It is also my first appearance at this store, on book tv. This is a wonderful thing for me area i thought what i would do tonight is start with a short reading, about eight minutes, from the introduction of the book so that if you have not read the book you will get an idea of the scope of the story. There are three plot lines i tread to i try to thread together. I dont have time for all of them but i would leave read through the beginning, then i will stop reading and talk about one of the characters from the book, someone who Everybody Knows but generally doesnt associate with boston. And then if i dont digress too much we should have plenty of time for discussion. So i will start with a short reading. This is from the introduction to the fever of 1721. 1721 might be the most important anonymous year in the evolution of modern medicine and american liberty. During the worst smallpox epidemic in bostons history, a lone physician conducted an experiment that saved hundreds of lives, launched a new medical is a plan and helped pave the way for the eradication of the worlds most devastating disease. The procedure he employed, known as inoculation, would over time be modified and extended to fight other fatal diseases, preventing the deaths of untold millions of persons. In 1721 it was considered barbaric and tantamount to attempted murder. Town officials, the medical establishment and rankandfile bostonians opposed it. Some of those opponents seemed willing to do anything to stop it. In april 1721 smallpox came to boston for the first time in nearly two decades. It arrived on the hms seahorse, a british warship. By the time the epidemic burned itself out a year later, half of the 11,000 inhabitants had been infected. Among those who escaped death were 300 men, women and children who had undergone inoculation. The procedure again with an incision in the skin of the healthy person. It was implanted with viscous fluid from pustules of someone who had broken out in smallpox. The idea was to produce a mild and easily tolerated case of the disease and confirm immunity to future infection. Prior to 1721 inoculation had never been attempted in america. The proposal to try it in boston came from a puritan minister, Cotton Mather. A theological conservative and master of fire and brimstone was one of the controversial figures of boston. As a result of his moment in the salem witch hysteria tickets before. He had become in the years since salem and inherent of enlightenment science and enthusiastic monitor of the latest and most exotic medical developments in europe and beyond. The towns most esteemed physicians dismissed mathers proposal out of hand but one doctor accepted the challenge. In 1721 boylston was 42 years old and accepted as a physician and apothecary shop owner. He had achieved a measure of fame for his track record with surgeries but was relegated to the second tier of medical practitioners because he lacked the educational pedigrees of his colleagues. Without boylstons daring, James Franklin would never have watched the new england current. The struggling boston printer had been looking for an opportunity to start a newspaper modeled on the best london publications. It would be witty, provocative and ambitious. Antithesis of the generally dull and perfunctory boston newspapers already in circulation. In 1721 he leveraged the publics hunger for opinions about inoculation to put his plan into action. If his current had done nothing more than reprint excerpts of essays, along with the topical spectator commentaries of Joseph Addison and richard steele, it would have made a noteworthy contribution to american journalism and american independence. But it went further. Sidebyside with the essays of the great medical and social thinkers of the european enlightenment, james published distinctly american essays and letters penned by himself and others breathe a criticized and satirized the religious and political establishments of oneill massachusetts with a boldness that scandalized their fathers generation. The onion, the daily show and colbert report of its day. The American Social and political satire began with this newspaper, everything from mark twain to south park is descended from it. At the same time he was inventing social and political commentary, James Franklin was helping invent the man generally regarded as the first american. Two years after being pulled from school, 12yearold Benjamin Franklin had been indentured as his brothers apprentice. For the better part of the next three years as he learned the trade that would make an wealthy, he had embarked on his storied selfeducation, his inspiration and many texts came from his brothers Printing House which contained a large and Diverse Library of books and periodicals and served as a Meeting Place for James Franklins clever and loquacious friends. Their conversations about books and pamphlets and debates about politics, religion and social issues of the day fired young benjamins mind and imagination and he saw his destiny unfolds before him. In 1721 the 15yearold was given a front row seat to the inoculation controversy. What he learned from that debate and his involvement in the newspaper changed his life and helped define him as an author, publisher, political philosopher, experimenter and diplomat. Everything Benjamin Franklin ever really needed to know, he learned in 1721. By early 1722 he was ready to take the public stage. Disguised as a country widow. It is fitting the Political Movement that would make him famous as a American Patriot was comingofage at the same time he was. Elisha cook, jr. The son of one of the colonys wealthiest men and most beloved politicians, he had inherited his fathers fortune, talent for politics and bitter and abiding was a man towards england for its 1684 cancellation of the original massachusetts charter which had given the colony a remarkable degree of autonomy. After being elected to the massachusetts house of representatives for the first time, he had put all three of those inheritances to work opposing and obstructing the royal government. Before three years had elapsed, the pug nations, hard drinking cook had built americas First Political machine and the bane of english officials, one of whom accused him of poisoning the mind of countrymen with republican notions to assert the independency of new england. In 1721 the smallpox epidemic sparked a leap forward in medical science. It served as a catalyst for the invention of american journalism, coming of age of Benjamin Franklin and beginning of american independence itself. This book is about that epidemic. It is a story of five remarkable men and other courage, daring and desperation in a time of crisis defined their destinies defined ours. Thank you. I will concentrate on the most famous of the characters, someone who, though associated with philadelphia, was and remained very much a boston boy. Im talking of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin would leave boston when he was 17 years old and never live in the town again. At times for the rest of his life he would sometimes say some rather tough things about his hometown. Famously he wrote to lafayette who had named his daughter in honor of the american republic, that he hoped a frenchman the frenchman to be blessed with 12 more children to have each after the colonies, but worried for the soul of anyone named after massachusetts which he felt was too harsh even for boys. He never did return to boston permanently but made four extended visits to the town and would have made a fifth except for the british occupation. It was never far from his thoughts. Wherever he went, philadelphia, england, france, he kept tabs on boston. Famously his friend Joseph Priestley said when franklin read about the military occupation of boston and the closing of the port, there were tears on his cheeks. In 1784 when he was in france, he wrote a letter confessing not only that he longed to see boston, but he had hoped to be buried in boston. He did not return to boston and was not buried in boston. He did remember the town in his will. He bequeathed the same amount of money to boston as he did to philadelphia. In all of these ways franklin acknowledged how much boston meant to him. Those gestures i think only begin to reflect how profoundly important the town was to his development as a writer, philosopher and person. It is my contention in this book that the five years Benjamin Franklin spent with his brother james as apprentice, and especially the year 1721, when he helped james launch the new england current and had a front row seat for the inoculation currency were the most formative of his life. I say everything he ever really needed to know, he learned in 1721. The book elaborates on why i make that claim. I want to talk about what happened before that. Franklin was a long and consequential life and did so many things we dont know that much about the earliest part of his life. There are a great many biographies. I have read most of them. Because he had such a long life and did so many things, the first 15, 20 years usually get a few pages. I think they deserve more. I want to talk about how the Franklin Brothers got together in the first place, they struggled to make a go of it and almost did not, and how that influenced what would happen in 1721 and Benjamin Franklins entire life. James and benjamin were the fourth and eighth children of their parents. The father had been married once, got seven children from the first marriage for with the other wife, marriage. With the other wife he had 10 children. Because he was very religious, and he was very much devout as a puritan he hoped to tithe ben to the church and set him up to be a minister. If you wanted to be a congregational minister of any standing, you went to boston latin as a prep school and then Harvard College which many of you know started out as a Training Ground for congregational preachers in new england. Even though Josiah Franklin didnt have a lot of money, he was a tallow chanter which means he made soap and candles. He decided that he was going to somehow or other going to send his son to harvard, boston latin and make him a minister. Benjamin franklin started at austin latin as his father wished and he actually did quite well, scholastically. It became clear quickly he lacked the piety and the calling to be a minister. There is a famous story, many of you have heard about, one winter, one fall they were putting up provisions for the winter and they were salting meat. Ben turned to his father and suggested they ought to pray over the barrel once and save themselves praying every time they sat down to eat. That is a typical ben franklin kind of logical piece of logic. But it was great for everything but not for someone who was going to be a preacher obviously. So when josiah realized his son did not have the right stuff for the ministry he saw no reason to incur a huge expense of sending him to school. He pulled him from school and put him to work in the tallow shop making soap and candles. This was hot, physical work and smelly work because they would boil down animal fats. Ben franklin, even at 10 years old, a strapping, strong kid who did a lot of swimming, he hated the work. He was obviously a prodigy. He needed something more challenging. He told his father he wanted to go to sea, see the world. His father was upset because it was Common Knowledge among everyone that being a sailor was a dangerous occupation. But Josiah Franklin had already lost a son who was a sailor. Josiah junior had left home against his wishes, hired on to a ship and lost at sea probably from a storm or pirates. They never knew. Josiah was determined Benjamin Franklin would not suffer that fate. He took his son around town, took the day off of work. He took him all around trying to find alternate occupation and for a variety of reasons it did not work out. There they are back in the tallow shop. Benjamin is still miserable. Josiah is worried he will run off to sea. James franklin returns from england. He was 20 years old and he had been in england for a number of years apprenticing as a printer. Now he was back in boston, good at his trade, had seen what they were doing in england and how exciting it was, how boring it was in boston and said i need to turn this town on its ear. Josiah said no way. He needed money, and josiah would have had to borrow the money to give it to james. He said no way because of a couple of things. He thought james ought to cool his jets and serve his time and get to know the business a little better. Mainly it was because he thought along with everybody else in boston there were enough printers in the town and the town could not support another printer and this venture would fail. But james kept pushing. Pretty soon josiah found himself with james taking and benjamin wanting anything but to be in the tallow shop. He said i will get you the money provided you take your brother as your apprentice. It sounds like a good deal but the boys were practically strangers because James Franklin had been away learning to become a printer almost all of Ben Franklins life. They did not know each other very well. They were different people. But it was the best deal either of them could get. In 1718, august 1718, they went into business in a little shop on what was called queen street across from the town prison which would loom large in their futures. By the way, maybe all of you know this but if you start at the statehouse and walk up 150 yards and look at the black on the building to your right, you will see the spot where Benjamin Franklin and james frequent had their Printing House for the house is gone, but the plaque marks the spot. Almost from the first day ben franklin started working for his brother, his life changed. After two years doing drudgery, he now was in his element. He found himself surrounded by books and pamphlets and printed materials. He was working with words and setting type and doing rings that were natural for him. There was more to it and being surrounded by books. James franklin his brother was no slouch. Not as a reader or writer or thinker. Even more important he was a magnet for other young men like himself, young men in boston who were tired of the same old, same old, the extreme religious oppression i guess would be the way to say it, restrictions. Every day or nearly every day they would drop by the franklin Printing House and they james and those guys would talk politics, philosophy and the big issues of the day. Benjamin franklin could not participate but he was soaking it all in. These were his teachers. These were his boston lads, his harvard teachers he did not get. If you have read the autobiography, you know that franklin talks about conducting his selfeducation, how he taught himself remedial math and to be a better writer, better debater. He doesnt say, but i think he should have, that it was working for james, being in that particular Printing House and that exciting environment with books and men expressing ideas he had never heard before that inspired him to start that amazing journey. He wanted to be like them. Very soon after joining james in the Printing House ben franklin had been saved. His spirit i think had nearly been broken. That his father took him looking for another job and was willing to let him out of the tallow shop reflects how bad Benjamin Franklin felt at that point. It is not too much to say he was depressed. Now he was reborn and in his element. But business wise, not so much. Business wise, things were not so good. Josiah franklin was right. Boston did not need another printer. To make matters worse, a month after they opened their printing shop, samuel kneeland, who was not just any young man but the nephew of the most established printer in all of new england opened a Printing House across the alley on the franklins and it was no mistake. Now it was a certainty if there were any drips and drabs of printing that was not already being taken up by the other printers, it would go to samuel kneeland. That left the brothers, from the moment they opened their shop, within a month, in a fairly desperate situation. All of a sudden james had to do two things he never thought he would have to do. The first was he had to print fabrics for the rich women in town. That is not what he had come to boston to do. He also found he had to carve woodcuts for illustrations. He happened to be the only person in boston who was artisan enough to do those. It should have been a great advantage for them, that they were the only ones who had these customized, very well done woodblock illustrations in the published works. But because of the way things worked out, james had to job out of these things to his competitors, making their work look great at his own expense. It was a bad situation but said something about james he was not humbled by bad luck. He advertised the fabric printing capabilities he and benjamin had and got in a little dig on the competition. He said he printed fabrics without the offensive smell that attends the linens printed here. He had bravado but beneath all of that, things had gotten desperate. The stress of trying to survive in business created more stress between the brothers. James they were different types. James was intense, moody and liked to drink. Benjamin was as strongwilled as his brother. He would admit he was not always the best apprentice. He could be saucy and provoking. Because the brothers were in a bad state business wise and they came out on each others nerves, we know from the autobiographies that james beat ben. This was not uncommon among masterapprentice relationships. But it is something ben franklin resented for the rest of his life. If james could not get enough available work in town he would have to create his own content. During his time in england he had discovered the broadside ballad. It was a single sheet of paper, bigger than this and it was printed with versus. Those verses were specifically very melodramatically creations of some big event of the news, tragic death or scandal. If we did them today, and we do, we would say they were ripped from the headlines. But you could write them fast, rushed them out into the street, sell them for little money and they could be big money makers, providing you have an event exciting enough to dramatize invalid and you needed a hack poet willing to write serviceable verses for little money. In november 1718, James Franklin got his big event. There was a freak accident near little brewster island, the location of boston light. The lighthouse keeper and his wife and daughter and several others were coming back from boston, in a small boat approaching the island. For some reason, it was a nice day, the sun was out, nothing terrible, somehow the boat overturned and everybody drowned. The other daughter, who had stayed behind on the island, was watching the whole thing. What made it in addition to being tragic and ironic was people thought these people were going to die. They were at the outer reaches of Boston Harbor on a small rock. They had survived so far all kinds of terrible weather. In 1717 they had all of their sheep, 70 sheep swept into the ocean by a storm. People expected a storm to kill them but it was a nice day. There was a sense of irony. James knew he had a subject and now needed a poet, one he could pay little or better yet, nothing. He found one standing right next to him. Benjamin franklin and James Franklin had an uncle also named ben. He encouraged young ben to practice writing verse. He knew his little brother could write something to pass as verse. Could a 12yearold boy, which is what ben franklin was, create a thrilling drama that would pass for the work of adult and sell lots of copies and get them out of trouble . No one knew the answer but james was desperate and benjamin was free. So james set benjamin to work. Benjamin wrote the account. They set it in type, printed it, james pushed benjamin out the door to sell this. It was a huge hit. It was a phenomenon. Decades later when franklin wrote his autobiography, he talked about, very typical ben franklin, he said it was wretched stuff and it sold wonderfully. That is very ben franklin like. He didnt want to give himself too much credit. Even when he had done so many other things he took enormous pride in this first ballad he had written when he was 12 years old. They had a big windfall in terms of profit and james found a way to make money. He had to wait for the next big event. In early 1719, austin received word blackbeard, the famous pirate whose name was edward teach, had been killed off of the coast of what would become north carolina. Teach was one of the most famous pirates in history. Part of it was what he did and part how he looked. He had a beard that was said to start below his eyes and hang down to his waist and argued down the middle and he crossed it with red ribbon. He looks crazy so he must be crazy. He was pretty fearsome. Boston had a reason even beyond that to be afraid of teach. The reason boston was so afraid of him was blackbeard had promised to burn boston to the ground because the town had tried, convicted and hanged a fellow pirate. So when bostonians heard blackbeard was dead, it was very big news. When they heard about the circumstances of his death, James Franklin realized he had the stuff for another broadside ballad. What had happened was two royal navy sloops had trapped blackbeards ship in a cove. But blackbeard had more firepower. After getting very drunk, he went to the bow and started cursing out his would be captors. He did that for several hours, drank and cursed. And then when he could not date them into attacking him, he opened fire. With his superior fire it was not long before he pounded them into submission. One was nearly destroyed, the other disabled. He thought he had won. There would be little assistance because he had killed all of the sailors, but he was surprised by a sneak attack from the crew which had been hiding below deck. An enormous handtohand close range battle broke out. The captain, maynard, shot blackbeard, but it didnt kill him. And then one of maynards sailors stabbed blackbeard in the neck and blackbeard in what could only be described as the perfect line from a johnny depp pirate movie said well done, lad. And the sailor was flattered with the compliment, but it didnt show because he proceeded to decapitate blackbeard with one swing of his sword. So his head lay flat on its shoulder. Very graphic. They threw the body into the ocean, put his head on the bowsprit of the ship and sailed to virginia. James franklin said this is what i need. He put benjamin to work. It was called teach the pirates. You would think it would have been more successful than the lighthouse drownings. It was less successful, but it did make money. James franklin thought he cracked the code, he found his niche. If nothing else, his days of printing fabrics for the rich women in town and jobbing out his illustration carvings were finally over. But that was not to be either. Although the ballots were popular and successful, they were looked down upon by the better sort of bostonians who consider them disreputable, inappropriate. Ben franklin and James Franklins father josiah was one of the biggest critics. He had a humble trade but largely because of involvement in the church in his own native intelligence and ability, he had managed to climb socially so he included some of the most powerful men in boston among his circle of friends. Judge Samuel Sewall was a regular visitor and one of the most, maybe the most esteemed person in all of massachusetts. Josiah franklin was not happy about the drowning valid. Decapitating a pirate and writing about it was something else. He called benjamin to his home and told him to continue doing this, you will be ruined. He did not tell him to stop but you better stop doing this. James franklin owed his father all the money he had not been able to pay back in terms of money needed to start the business, he was obligated to honor his fathers wishes. That ended the only real money making scheme james and Benjamin Franklin had been able to get in two years in the business. By the beginning of 1720 when, the year i center on, after printing one of the town newspapers which was regular pay but did not last, james and benjamin found themselves where they had started in 1718, no further along towards security or even knowing whether they could survive another six months. They had learned two important things that when the situation changed would make the difference. James discovered if he could create the kind of content, he could succeed. Benjamin had discovered at 12 years old, he could write better than most adults. What james wanted to do was start his own newspaper, inspired by the innovative publications in london. He had held off the coast the town had two newspapers. The conventional wisdom was the only thing boston needed less than another printer was another newspaper. In april 1721 smallpox came to boston. Usually came every 12 years. In this case it had not come after 12 years. It was close to 20 years, 18 years and it would create the worst smallpox epidemic the town had ever seen. Two months after, a doctor named boylston would conduct his first inoculation experiment using his own sixyearold son is one of his first three patients. The act, using his son and the larger act of inoculation would cause a controversy unlike anything boston had seen and james being an astute businessman realized he could exploit that controversy and capitalize to start the newspaper he had always wanted to start. The paper he would launch in august 1721 would be the first one published without government approval. It would become the first paper in america for the first document printed of any kind that would argue for the right of the press to criticize the government without punishment. That is 70 years before the first amendment. The new england current, that newspaper, would change the course of american journalism and start James Franklins little brother on his way to fortune and fame. Benjamin was already very good, very accomplished printer, would learn also how to be a successful and innovative publisher and savvy is this man, both of which his brother was. He would receive his first and in some ways most important lesson in the enormous potential of scientific experiment. He would learn to challenge authority and how not to challenge authority from his brother. In the pages of this newspaper he would read and eventually express in his own traditions ideas about Political Freedom that were new to america and 50 years in the future would make him an essential figure in the fight for american independence. Thank you. [applause] and now i guess, if anybody has questions or would like to talk about any other aspect, i would be happy to do it. The gentleman from book tv would like us wait until the mic comes around. Raise your hand if you have a question and we will bring the microphone over. Does anybody have a question . [indiscernible] compared to current day . Stephen this was a fairly sizable it had to be deep enough to draw blood and deep enough the size of, the amount of smallpox that was inserted in the wound was said to be about the volume of a pea. It was not an enormous cut. This is before anybody understood germ theory. Simply cutting the skin obviously left you susceptible to infection. That was one of the biggest threats of inoculation, not that it would not work or smallpox would kill you. It was the secondary infection that came from cutting the skin with a dirty knife or dirty implement of some kind. The person you were inoculating was the one taking the risk. Stephen yes. The person that the smallpox came from was unfortunately already very sick. What would happen is in some places, for example the reason we know this worked or Cotton Mather and boylston believed it would work was there were slaves that worked in the mather family. He told his master that in africa whatever smallpox came in to the village everyone would get these scars. And mather to his credit, unlike a lot of white men in the society at the time asked him to explain. He explained the procedure that turned out to be inoculation and which mather wrote about in a scholarly journal. Between those two things he was convinced it would work. I think it is a remarkably researched book. I have been reading it for a couple of days. Talk about writing it and where did you find all of this information and how long have you been thinking about it . Stephen it is interesting. This started literally with a calendar page. Back in the 1990s i got a fact of day desk calendar. One of them talked about the first use of inoculation and mentioned dr. Boylston and Cotton Mather had given boylston the idea and it was very controversial. That was literally all i knew. I knew boylston was a street in boston. I knew Cotton Mather was the bad guy of the salem witch trials. At that point i thought i wanted to write the screenplay. I did write a screenplay. It was very zoned in on the medical part of the story. As i started doing more research and you start to get deeper and deeper into the story, i realized in addition to being an incredible medical history story it was also about political history and journalism, journalistic history and very much about what made Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin. I wont give you all the details but years past, i did not do anything with the screenplay. A friend suggested, he said you need to write the book. It is too big of an idea to put in a 100 page screenplay. I decided it virtuously i guess to start researching in earnest enough to do a whole book. That took seven years to research, to write, rewrite, shorten and publish. [laughter] i left out probably stuff i needed to leave out which is a lot of back story. You do all of that research and i had to do a lot of research into the characters, biographical stuff, research of medical history and everything that had been done up to that point. I had all of this information. And i wanted to dump it all in and say everything all at once. What ended up happening was i trimmed away there is a backstory, but i trimmed away everything but the back story leading to 1721 and what came out of it, the implications of it. Any other questions. Yes . I did not know about the broadside ballads. He did it as you say because he knew ben was good with words and writing. If he ever suspect not being able to identify this person that maybe it might have been his brother . Stephen he should have. It seems so obvious. If you read silas do good with the knowledge of hindsight, you can see different places where ben franklin peaks out from silence dogood. But he did not. He didnt know. I think it is because there was such a strong it was for bitten for an apprentice to do anything without permission from his master. It was a breach of protocol but i think james never thought benjamin would do it. If he put benjamin to work on something, it was because he was the master and benjamin was the apprentice. When he found out, he was very angry and ben franklin alludes to that in the autobiography. I agree. It is one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight, but at the time, a combination of not leaving ben would do that and even james underestimated ben. James did not want to see how brilliant his brother was, so he did not. Anybody else . Would you talk about elisha cook . Stephen he is a fascinating figure. He is our founding grandfather. He started the boston caucus, the original boston caucus, the First Political machine in america in 1719 through 1721 is when it came to full power. Elisha cook was a wealthy person. His father had always resented, when england canceled the first charter that gave them so much power, fix their own governor and make their own laws, hands off approach towards massachusetts, when that went away and was replaced by the new charter, which gave them a royal governor imposed by england and took away a lot of the autonomy, elisha cook senior was outraged. Really he was estranged from england and passed it down to his son. Although elisha cook would have told you he was a subject of the crown, did not feel like it and did not talk like it. Elisha cook junior took up the cause and dedicated the rest of his life to making life miserable for england. He was enemy number one for the crown for many years. The organization he created gave birth in future decades to the other caucuses, the sons of liberty, the mechanisms by which the American Revolution was started pretty much. You may or may not know from the book that sam adams, who we call the firebrand of the American Revolution, has a direct tie to elisha cook. Elisha cook had deputies in the 1730s and 1740s. One of those was samuel adams senior, the deacon. Sam adams senior and elisha cook would meet at the adams house. And the one we know would be there. He would hear them discussing political philosophy, strategies to confound the british and that is where sam adams got his politics, from elisha cook junior. He comes across as a remarkable parliamentarian. Certainly sam adams was one. Stephen sam adams elisha cook went out of his way to affect the look and behavior of a common man. He built up this political power by buying drinks. He owned a lot of pubs and taverns and had political power by getting people who were eligible to vote but never voted to become engaged in the system. He was a populist before populism. To do this even though he was wealthy and harvard educated, even though he had that ringing, he met that upbringing, he made himself a man of the people. Sam adams did the same thing. Anybody else . Yes. You are talking about opening up the current and he started off being a muckraker. Puts me in mind of samuel adams defending a publisher for slander. And became the basis of the first amendment, freedom of the press, and i guess i could read it again. I dont know what the paper was sam adams defended. Would it have been the current . Stephen no. It was defunct by the late 1720s. Boston got the best of James Franklin. He was kicked out of town and moved to newport and started a Printing House there. There are connections. I talked in the book that at the trial for freedom of the press, there was a connection to these guys. I will forget names now. I dont remember the lawyer who defended him but he had a connection to ben franklin. Sam adams . Stephen no. That whole trial had been before that all happened. But the current definitely created a precedent. When zenger was tried, there was a move that could criticize the government even though it was illegal. What happened with the current and James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin would continue to talk about a free press in his newspaper and that influenced everything that followed. Thank you very much. [applause] hilary thank you, stephen. Thank you, book tv for being here. I will clear the chairs out of the way and books are for sale in the next room. Thank you, all. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs each week on america. S, reel heres a quick look at one of our recent programs. Today there are no distances. Today the airplane links continents as translink cities. Today the people of the world are one people joined by wings over the globe. Today people of all races of every level move from country to country in a matter of hours. Today vital medical control is established along the modern point of international exchange. The airports, the network of Health Information and services has been extended here from the seaport organization. It is this sufficient . How long does it take for a potential epidemic can be detected . From one continent to another, only a few hours flying time. Cholera take longer to show itself. And yellow fever three to six days. And the incubation period of smallpox from seven to 16 days. Passengers in a modern plane look perfectly healthy. They are. But how do we know . That little girl when she got the doll, she receive germs as well . Germanssengers may be carriers perhaps already in the incubation stage. They will reach their destination before any set them show. Symptoms show. Defense issystem of no longer enough. Today epidemics must be crushed at the very source. Watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series, america here on American History tv. 1920 one, millions of soviet citizens faced starvation in one of the worst famines in history. Setting aside political differences, vladimir leven asked american hoover for help american president Herbert Hoover for help. Douglas smith gives an illustrated talk about the story based on his book, the russian job. The hill estate hosts this event. Estate hoswood