Its so nice to be your. Thank you all for coming. This is such a treat. First of all to be in philadelphia. Franklins hometown to talk about jane who once visited here and didnt love it as much as you love the boston, but also just to be here at a Public Library and celebrate this space and all that it stands for. So thank you to the library. [applause] groovi hope none of you ever hef Jane Franklin. She led a rich investing life, and im going to try to give you a whirlwind tour of it and will be looking at some slides and i even have props. Thats how i teach. So sit back and listen to the scale that hope is unknown to you. In 1771, Benjamin Franklin sent his sister jane a pair of spectacles. Rather, he center 13 pairs of spectacles with lenses of every size from one to 13. He sent her to instructions for conducting her own eye exam. When youre at the optometrist and put the horrible thing over your face and they flick the lenses and get to say which is better, which is better . They all look the same . This is what benjamin wrote to jane. Take out a pair at a time and hold one of the glasses first against one night and then against the other looking on some small print. If the first pair fits neither, put them up again before you open a second. I advise you trying each of your eye separately because the peoples eyes are fellows. So the question this raises for me as a biographer trying to write about benjamin and Jane Franklin, what does it mean to be one of a pair . Benjamin franklin was born alas not in philadelphia but in boston, my hometown and 1706. Usually wouldve been a red sox fan. I think thats clear. Spent his sister was born six years later. This is from the Franklin Family record book chronicling their birth. He was the youngest. She was the youngest of 7. At 17 [laughter] benny and Jimmy Derrick coleman and little, no two people in of them were more alike. Jane thought of her brother as her second self, she said. They were after a fashion twins anyway, like a pair of eyes. They post a biographical dilemma because their lives could hardly have been more different. Benjamin franklin ran away when he was 17. His sister never left. He taught himself to write with weight and force and style. She never learned how to spell. The day he turned 21 he wrote her a letter. She was 14. Beginning a correspondence that would last until his death 63 years later. He became a printer, a philosopher and statesman. She became a wife, a mother and a widow. He signed the declaration of independence, the treaty of paris, and the constitution. She strained to form the letters of earning. He loved no one longer. She loved no one better. Benjamin franklin wrote more letters to his sister, jane, and he wrote to anyone else. And all her life she wrote back, letter after letter filled with news and recipes and gaza. When she was truly best and let them with a blistering opinion about politics. Franklin as you know i think you guys know more about Benjamin Franklin than i do but, you know, that he wrote the story of his life, the private life of bridgman franklin it was called when it was First Published at a well turned tale about a boy who runs away from a life of poverty and obscurity in boston and leaves all that behind, leaves him behind, leaves his sister beyond, leaves ignorance behind, leaves the past behind to become an enlightened educated independent and cool. Amanda books, a man of learning, and men of science, a man of papers, a man of letters, a spectacle. 1771 the year Benjamin Franklin said his sister jane eyeglasses is also due to begin writing that story of his life. It wasnt published until his death in 1790. Benjamin franklins autobiography is one of the most important autobiographies ever written. It helped even invent the word. The word autobiography wasnt going until 1797, seven years later. Is was a private life made public. Its also an allegory about america, the story of a man as a story of the nation. Selfmade, rags to riches, the story of america, a spectacle for all the world to see. In that story he left his sister out. Never once did he so much as mention her. Where does that leave her unfortunate biographer . One half the world is not the other the other half lives, franklin once wrote. His sister i think is his other half. And if his life is an allegory, so is hers. But an allegory for what . Her life was not a spectacle. None of you have ever heard of her before but its difficult even to see her life next to his, her life seem so tiny. His famous matched only by her obscurity. If he is a spectacle, she is a. But i wanted in my to be a kind of eyeglasses that could help us see both at once . No portrait of jane survives like this iconic portrait of franklin. She cant be seen in that way. There are dozens of portraits of her brother. His popularity he wrote to her has occasioned so many paintings to be mr. Tipping that my face is almost as wellknown as that of the moon. She wrote back, yeah, and its just as changeable. The liked very much to be portrayed wearing his spectacles. They were kind of a trademark for him. The historian found that he is wearing his spectacles more than a third of all the surviving poachers but this is the case when theres almost no other 18th century portraits of anyone wearing eyeglasses but its a quite unusual thing. Franklin like this portrait the best. Why does he care so much about being seen wearing spectacles . The story of spectacles in early america is a story about reading. Spectacles were an emblem of the life of the mind. Eyeglasses, pieces of glass cut in thin to be held up before your eyes became common commodities not until well into the 17th century when they were used exclusively for reading. If you were literate you might have eyeglasses but you never would have eyeglasses if you are not literate. Arise if eyeglasses have actually inseparable from the rise of printing and expansion of literacy. People used spectacles to read printed books. You can see the first popular advertising for spectacles from london. This is what eyeglasses looked like and how they risked. These are called no spectacles are rich spectacles. They said on the bridge of your nose. This is a great portrait from early new england in 1670 holding the many sane. You can see they are very tiny. But theyre always in his portraits associate with books because the whole point of having spectacles was in order to read a book. But the very fact the existence of spectacles even though not many people have them, they only use them for reading, an age of isaac newtons optics actually inspired all kinds of different thinking about seeing and the act of site. Things and ideas about perspective and point of view and distortion. Said john donne france is absurd when thou lucas for spectacles, small things seem great. Spectacles made small things bigger. Wearing them, think about them also inspired reflection on the nature and the boundaries of the self and of moral imagination. If you could see through another mans eyes the way you can look through a pair of glasses. Richard steele writing in in 1711 that a mans eyes are spectacles to those who look at him to read his hard. You could see through the eyes into the hard. Wearing spectacles then was not a small thing for benjamin frankel. It marked him as a man of discernment. More plainly they marked him as a prodigious reader which he was. Jane always said when he was a young child he had learned to read, and get studied incessantly and was addicted to reading. Their father was a poor candle maker but he decided to send been since benny to school. They decide to give one of his sons to the church. That mentoring him to go to harvard by teaching in latin and greek. So in 1714 when jenny was due in benny was eight he entered school, a Grammar School and studied latin and greek in order to prepare for the ministry. Franklin spent only two years there before his father pulled him out and sent into a cheap as coal and then pulled him out of that School Effort to keep them at home to help make candles. Franklin hated it. Jimmys parents could not have sent her to school at all even if they had a mind to. No Public School in 18th century boston admitted girls. Beginning in 1701, messages required families ought to teach boys to read and to write, and girls to read. Girls were not commonly to write in 18th century. They were taught instead to stage. Three in five women could not even find the name. When you think about it, knowing had assigned him does not indicate liturgy, its a mechanical act. Most of those women who kids find the names could not ask the right. A boston newspaper printed a dialogue between a man and his wife about the education of the daughter they give a glimpse of the 18th century ideas about women. The mother wishes to send her dog to school husband refuses telling her pretty good competitors be able to read a chapter to it in the bible that she made mispronounce gods people. Maker expert and ready after prayers that god may keep her from the devil. Teacher with useful. I tell the wife once were ill have her this is Jane Franklins education at she was bred for needle and thread. She cut the wake and get the candles, the work that her brother hated. She boiled so. Why on earth did Benjamin Franklin one day need to send are spectacles . Girls never learned to read or buy. They learn to read that not right. Why do Jane Franklin one day need glasses . Jane franklin did learn to read because most of them do. She was no ordinary reader. She read passionately. She read avidly. She learned how to write which is quite an unusual thing. I think our brother taught her. Benjamin franklin from boyhood fought for his learning letter by letter, book by book, candle by candle back he valued nothing more and he let no one better than his little sister. But it was cool in his kindness because when he left, the lessons ended. In 1717 when she was five, her brother james set up a printing shop in boston. It was a godsend for Benjamin Franklin because he at last was a trade for a bookish boy whose family was too poor to send him to harvard. He began his brothers apprentice and he moved out of the house into a room above his brothers shot. He was 12, ginny was six. Being a printers apprentice gave him all kinds opportunity to read. It was the best part. He read every book that passed through the shop. He also read books a part from a friend of his named john collins. He sat up reading all night long. He and his friend john like to trade books and altavista stage debates as if they were university men. They used to pretend they were harvard students. The only debate to remember what enough to write about in his autolock if he was a he had with his friend over the propriety of educating the female sex and learning, and about the ability for study. Collins was of the opinion it was improper and the girls were unequal to it. Franklin disagreed. He took a contrary side, maybe he was thinking of jane. In crafting his argument franklin lane on the book written by essays on projects. The establishment of an academy for women right ive often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world considered as civilized and Christian Country that would unite the attendees of learning to women. Their use is spent to teach them to stitch and so or make bottles. Are taught to read and maybe to write their names, and that is the height of a womans education. He proposed an academy for women that would hold back such as geniuses would leave him to it. This is the argument Benjamin Franklin as a young boy made in this debate with his best friend. Hollowing the foes argue about the need for womens education. Franklin lost the argument. He had carried on a lot of the argument by writing. Franklin learned a great lessons about how to write and how to argue in the course of that debate but think about what that means. When Benjamin Franklin was improving pros, arguing about the education of girls come his sister jane was at some making candles and stitching. Quietly though what time she gets. She seems to have been doing more. She once wrote to her brother, i read as much as i dare. In 1721 jayme and danny brothers jane bought his first spectacles. What you want to do was right for business day. In his brother would never let him so he disguised his inviting and cadence of a pending and he slipped the contribution under the newspapers door. Opinionated and that was of course silence do good. She introduced herself i wake of remarks about the art of biography. This is why the seldom entertaining contain something admiral or exemplary. Says theres little o or nothing of this nature, and adventures but will briefly and then see worst possible. According to the promise can find all to this letter. Doesnt this make you want to go read 18th century stuff . This is awesome. Franklin wrote in the voice of mrs. Silence do good, a widow. A woman. Shed to explain because she now divides hatch came by her education. The person says is what makes plenty how it is likely a woman writer because it seems an impossibility her story was that her father and mother had died and she had been given as a charge to minister to a very liberal views about education. She had spent her childhood with the best of companies, books. So then about this from now, disguised as a woman whose girlhood was spent reading books, silenced a good was Jane Franklin. Benjamin franklin ran away from home in 1723. He was 17. Chain was 11. She was a reader, she some inspired Silence Dogood was she a writer . Virginia woolf once asked what wouldve happened if one shakespeshakespe are had a wonderful gifted sister . Lets imagine her name is judith. Wolf gave herself permission to invent judith shakespeare. She conjured a girl as brave and daring as her brother. She was as adventures as imagined as i cant of virginia wolf accident or else i would. Imagine Virginia Woolf. She was not sent to school. Had no chance of learning grammar and logic. Thats like bad she picked up the book now within. Whenever brothers maps and read a few pages but then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings are mine is due. This is a thought experiment of woolf. What wouldve happened . Before she was out of 13 just to be betrothed with a neighboring state. Like what does it will stay for even do . She cried out that marriage is hateful to her and for that she was severely beaten up by her father. He would give her a chain of beads and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him . How could she break his heart . In this fiction get its shaker does break her fathers are. She runs away and becomes an actress. Then she is seduced by a Theater Company manager. Shes made with child by him and then woolf writes, who shall measure the heat and violence of the poets heart and taught him to any womans body . She kills herself one winters night. Thats what happens to judith shakespeare. A question you might ask, is this whats going to happen to Jane Franklin . Judith shakespeare is of course virginia was imagination. Solitary and unencumbered. A free man. Judith shakespeare killed herself because she was pregnant, because she could not reconcile a life of the mind of the artist with a life of a mother. Neither could Virginia Woolf. The facts of Jane Franklins life are very hard to come by. Most of what she wrote is lost in what scant record of her life is record exists only because she was Benjamin Franklins record. Jane franklin is not a figment of my imagination. She was flesh and blood and milk into to her brother ran away and broke their fathers or. She would not. She could not. She didnt kill herself one winters night. She never gave herself that kind of broke either. She had too many people to look after. She never left anyone behind. Her whole life charlie of her left the house. She didn didnt have a room ofr own until she was 69. I right now in my own Little Chamber nobody announced to distribute, she wrote, delighted. She was very happy to have that room, but not having isnt isnt why she didnt write more or better. In 1723 after Benjamin Franklin ran away and settled here in philadelphia, where he opened a printing shop like his brother, a revolution in eyewear began. When this kind of eyeglasses, he called it temple spectacles were invented. Franklin start selling these kind of spectacles at his shop in philadelphia in 1730 when he was 24 which is also when he began rank them. The same age his brother needed to wear glasses. At first if of only one of them for reading like most other people did but before he started wearing them costly. He would walk up and down the Market Street when his eyeglasses and people would laugh, dont you know theyre only for reading . But he would use a different era when h used outside just legacy distance because he realized he had two kinds of problems with his site. Not long after you begin with spectacles, Benjamin Franklin of course invented life vocals. He explained i had two forms of spectacles which i should did occasionally but i sometimes read and often want to regard the prospect. I was having to take off when the glasses. You know how troublesome not having my other sufficiently ready instead of the glasses cut in half of each can associate in the same circle. I this means i have only to move my eyes upward and as i want to see distinctly, far or near. Its almost as if franklin left for me a little clue like the code explaining how to write a biography of two people were very different, like a binocular biography. I think this is a lesson here in the writing of history. Few peoples eyes are valid. Franklin wrote to his sister that day he centers but to go to our eyes look alike but they see differently he told her. Almost everybody in reading uses when i principally. One i might be used for eyesight. One day you might need to see far, one day you might need to senior. She needed two different lenses because she had two different eyes. Thats trying i think needs to different lenses. Want to see up close and what is he far away. One to write a life of the great invented in front and one to write the life of a small woman. I got obsessed with this idea of a im not do a when i was trying to write a life of Jane Franklin but it seemed it could be solved isolate different problems at once and i thought if only i had a pair of these classes. I got to wondering what they look like, the one that james look like. There is the 18th century portrait of a woman actually wearing spectacles. That are a few of Women Holding them. Theres one o other woman, anotr one where we can see a glasses. The book, its always the glasses in the book. I know how to read is what the suspect im a very learned woman. I not read. This one is very Hillary Clinton. She always has a glasses like that. Doesnt that look like Hillary Clinton . This is the closest ive found that women actually wearing glasses and dishes like im bringing brainy. Every portrait of a woman wearing spectacles are holding spectacles they got a hook with them and they are quite similar. Anyway, i decided i need a pair of these classes. That would be helpful, right . So i bought these at an online shop. I have been here. Notice the model of the shot. Pretty interesting. These are the glasses. I was going to get my prescription put in them but it was too expensive. Im cheap. I cant see a thing. I put them on and i would pass them around but i dont think usual imagination. If you have glasses, take them off for a minute. A bookish crowd. Everybody has glasses. Think about the way that wearing spectacles changes your sense of yourself. Put them back on. I can read my notes. When you have your glasses on, think about very few people at glasses. A weird thing to put them on. It would be like wearing google glass, something really uncommon. When you put your glasses on, you suddenly get an inside and outside to your head. Do you know what they mean . Theres a window on the house of your soul. People really felt that way, that you could see into someone, through the glasses. Maybe even if i were to put these Jane Franklin classes on i could hear into Jane Franklins hard. So that was what i was thinking. So putting on my inner Jane Franklin bifocals i thought about Benjamin Franklin and i thought about Virginia Woolf. Then i looked at them side by side. That is pretty interesting right there. Is in its . Because you can see they share a posture, a pose, a worldview, a notion of self would, a notion of a writers life. This is a vision of how an author looked. This is a vision of the author as solitary and alone in in a room of her own. The author and encumbered by anyone elses needs. That is the story told in both of these portraits, the very same story but its also the story that franklin tells in his autobiography, and why he has to leave his sister out of it. Jane franklin was not unencumbered. Is there portrait of her it would not look like this. She was hardly ever alone. She also never wrote the story of her life. It would never have occurred to her to do the. She did once dont stitch covers to make a book of 16 pages. This is the cover of the. I made a facsimile. I told you i have props. This is the actual size of Jane Franklins autobiography. I was trying really hard to transport myself. When i went to see this little book that jane made, it exists in archive in boston, it is very small. Its humble. Its quite plain, as you can see. On the first page she wrote three words, book of ages. What the hell does that mean . I just didnt know, what does that mean . Its not an autobiography. It is a book of ages. It is a list of the births and deaths of her 12 children. It is a litany of greek. It is a record increase of a life lived not bags to riches but rags to rags. And the hardest thing about reading Jane Franklins book of ages is that it is 16 pages. As i turned them i discovered she had left most of the pages blank. Hasnt she nothing more to say . It was filled with despair sitting in archive. Like my glasses were useless. What was i thinking that i could actually know this woman and write about her . But i put my glasses on and i thought about buying bifocals, and i looked at those pages one more time. Im sitting in the archives holding these pages stitched together with coarse threads look at that blank page through Jane Franklin spectacles. I begi began to think that Jane Franklin actually have something to say after all. And so very eloquently i once more turned the pages of her book of ages. I felt an unwritten story, history of books and papers, the history of reading and writing. A book of ages about ages of books. So i just want to tell you a little bit about how the story works to i thought first about the book itself, her paper was made from rags, strength and dried. On a table should lay down a sheet of paper and smoothed it with the palms of her hands. She creased it and folded it and folded it again. She pressed it open. She used a needle to stitch the seems. It is no thicker than a patch of burlap, but then she dipped the pen from if a bird into a pot i think and wrote book of ages, in this hand that should learn out of a book her brother printed in philadelphia called the american instructor, a young mans best companion. Boys learned how to write. She turned the page and rode Jane Franklin born march 27, 1712. The writing is difficult to read some going to give you a transcription of a. The book of ages, her age was the first age we learned. Born march 27, 75, married to like 27, 1727, 15 years and four months. She was a child when she married. The legal age for marriage in massachusetts was 16. The average age was 24. Which except for jane is the average age at which her sisters were married, and also the age at which Benjamin Franklin was married. It was extremely unusual to mary at the age of 15. It was also illegal. Edward nihcm was poor, he was a sadler, he wore a wig and to be fat but she never once wrote anything about him expressing affection. She hard about anything about them at all. Then added one line, and died may 18, 1730. A child of her child had died three weeks shy of his first birthday. A dead child is like no more surprising than a broken picture. One in four children died before the age of 10. They were wrapped in lynn, dipped in melted . While a pine box was built. At the gravesite would be no sermon. Knower ministers warned got there to be any tears. Luke, chapter 17 verse 13, we do not. What remains of a life like this . Remains means what remains of the body after death, remains also unpublished papers and our descendents, our children are our remains. The boston poet wrote about her children as my little babies, my dear remains. But her poem for her children, she called him without ill formed offspring of my feeble brain. Her words are all better children would one day have left upper. She wrote, a chance for my eyes shall bring this, kiss this paper. Chain did not know how to write a poem. She couldnt have afforded a great so for this child but instead, she went home and wrote a book of remembrance. Kiss this paper. In 1733 Jane Franklin turned 21. She came of age. From philadelphia her brother sent her the gift of a book, a copy of the latest library in three volumes. Jayme king from her book given to her by her brother Benjamin Franklin 1733. Franklin of course as old you know knew a great deal about libraries. He had founded the First Library in america. He printed up a charge for borrowers. Jane had her own ideas about life as. On the television of a copy of the latest library she described her name inside. She once went to second on to franklins wife, borrowed from citizens should be sure she would get it back. Benjamin franklin was explained with elaborate come until dusk had meant to him. This library of 40 a means of improvement by constantly for which i set apart an hour or two each day and thus prepared in some degree the learned education my father had once intended for me. I think you meant the latest library to do the same for his sister. But it only went so far. Franklin have found it in philadelphia a gentlemens library. Uses to get the latest library. A book as radical premise was dated on the first page of the first volume which read, it is a great injustice to shut books of knowledge from the eyes of women. Prepare the loss, open the book, kiss the paper. Jane franklin gave birth to 12 children in 24 years. Her belly swelled and ended and swelled again. Her breast filled and emptied and filled again. Her days were days of flesh, the legs and arms and hands clutched around her neck. A baby in her arms, she stared into tuples kettles and subs. In her book of ages she pressed her children between the pages. Her husband fell into debt. He may have gone mad. Two of her sons became violently insane. They had to be locked up. Jane and her children lived with her parents whom she nursed in their old age. She gave birth to 12 children in 24 years and buried 10 of them. She wrote to her brother, sorrows roll upon me like the waves upon the sea. Im hardly a loud time to catch my breath. I am broken with breach up on breach. And she begged god citing job, what have i more . She found comfort in the book of ages and in the book she read books or brother center. She read and she read ive spent years trying to reconstruct your vibrator to use a rotary name in the books she own like her brothers expended on electricity. She once wrote to him and asked him this and all the pamphlets and papers that have been printed of his writing. She want to read all the political pieces. He wrote back i could easily make a collection for the past hearings of my nails. But he said what he couldnt. It was politics tha that she lod this. Aikido books of philosophy and politics by me though ive read through them many times. I find a place in the. She asked him for books written by other authors, books chart about, she wrote swift and pope, newspapers and magazines, novels in history. She read sermons and speeches. She read whatever she could get her hands on. She read until her eyes grew strained. Her eyes were like her two brothers. She wouldve needed reading glasses by the age of 24. But women of course do not commonly wear spectacles. Its not that you dont see them in fortress. Women did not have the spectacle. Did not own them. In 1771 jane brody Benjamin Franklin and asked him to send her some. He center those 13 pay. A senior massachusetts for the first time required the girls be taught to write. Ideas about female education were finally changing. Support for the education of girls grew rapidly in the years following the American Revolution and with the rise of womens education came a rise in the theme ownership of eyeglasses. All the porters our journey of Women Holding classes, these are from the 1780s and 1790s before the two you never see Women Holding classes because women were not learned anyway. And the company of books and the company of her own mind in the end of her life, Jane Franklin became a radical. A reader who like politics and philosophy best she absorb some of the most radical ideas of the 18 century. I just want to get one last story about a book she read in 1786 when she was 74. She raise her children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren and buried in most of the. She put on his spectacles and she read the book written by richard price, a clergyman and political radical. One objection the idea that everything in life is feted by providence he wrote is the failure. Many pairs in the month and many more are mixed in the bloom county road. And al produces 300,000 seeds a year but very few going to treat. Thousands of boils and clocks and mutants, isaac newton how geniuses have probably been lost to the world and lived and died in ignorance and meanness, merely for want of being placed in favorable situations, and ensuring proper advantages. No one dies or not at that doesnt mean suffering can be protested. At her death, whether spectacles resting on her nose, jane wrote a letter to her brother. Dr. Price thinks thousands of boils and clarks engines have probably been lost to the world, she wrote. She added an opinion of her own. Very few we know is able to see to all impediments and rice to superiority and understanding. Benjamin franklin new, and his sister new even better. That very few ever get through 300,000 seeds, 600 eggs to make one spider, 17 children of josiah franklin, how many, very few, nearly none, only one, or possibly to. There. Jane franklin died in 1794. What remains of her life to her book of ages the start is stored in an archive in boston. Her spectacles did not survive. The bulk of the correspondence between benjamin and Jane Franklin, the only surfaced in the year 1928 when 59 letters were auctioned by since these of london. In 1928 figure those letters were auctioned a flood of Virginia Woolf turned her attention to the question of womens right. She just finished writing orlando, a parody of biographi biographies. Biographies of nobodys. The obscure sleep on the wall slouching against each other as if they were too drowsy to stand upright. It was in october 19 went that virginia will deliver answers of lectures to women undergraduate at Cambridge University and soon after published as a room of one. What, she wanted to know, what has happened had shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister called judith . Ive always wondered where she got that idea. And i think maybe that fall Virginia Woolf casting about for ideas from june about in bookstores came across a catalog from london slum it up on a shelf is in to read a most remarkable and extensive sizzled it is written by Benjamin Franklin to his sister. And id like to think in order to read those words from inner to imagine both judith and william shakespeare, i think about both jane and Benjamin Franklin, virginia will at first put on her spectacles. Thank you. [applause] i would be lighted to take questions. If you could wait for a microphone to arrive, that would be terrific. Raise your hand yes, in the green. I. I have some questions, and its great that you did this. I am wondering if ben franklin ever return home to see her . And also, he had a lot of nephews who manned printing shops all over the colonies. Were any of them her children speakers what terrific questions. This is why you, to philadelphia, to talk about the franklins. Yes, he did come he joked that he visited boston every year that ended in a three. Which he did. He went in 1723, 33, 43, 53. I think that was it. He went in 23 to sort of show off yet become a printer and then he went in 33 do this again and the broader the latest library that you. I dont know why he went in 43. He was postmaster general, deputy postmaster general. Peace david janes house. In 53 he went to get an Honorary Degree from harvard, which must have felt good after having not been able to afford to go. So he saw her every 10 years. But they spent time together because when the revolution begin, boston was occupied by the british, in fact over belongings and fled the city, saving all that are franklin had sent to her that she kept in this little trunk. She fled first to rhode island and then john adams got word to Benjamin Franklin that jane had survived the attack and franklin was at the condo congress and he kind of made it necessary that somehow he had to go meet George Washington in cambridge. Had to talk to him about something. He went out to get jane. He brought her back to philadelphia. She spent the beginning of the revolutionary war in philadelphia living in his house. So wendy kopp middle congress is meeting, jane is there. The problem is the sad thing is when people are in the same house, its worse because they dont write letters. As a historian you hate it when people see one another. [laughter] oh, the nephews. Said change thirds until she named her first son after father, and nixon after husband and her third son after her brother. This is commonly what she would do. So he became a printer. Franklin arranged for into the apprentice. Very convoluted tale. He is one that goes violently insane. Franklin nutter wants him to succeed so they can take care of his mother. To the gentleman way back here. Could you wait for the mic phone, please . Thanks. Just a question. You have any knowledge as to whether not jane and Abigail Adams had any coming in a, relationship . They knew of each other i would assume, but yeah. Well, franklin new atoms, john adams of course hated franklin. But like sort of, this is not meant to make fun of your question but its like saying that my mother know Hillary Clinton . Its a completely different social and especially economic circle. Jane franklin was a very poor woman struggling as a widow. Abigail adams was quite a learned and educated woman, of her day. Who traveled the world with john adams, went to london and paris with them, which is much more cosmopolitan person. So ive no reason to believe they would ever have known one another. People that jane liked i have a chapter in the book about a fascinating . Artist who jane adores because she makes these . People, which jane makes soap and making like . People like that and she she heats up the . By putting it between her thighs and she works it on her skirt and gives birth to like these heads off mike so jane thinks she thinks that the most beautiful and ive ever seen. She writes franklin a letter, shes going to go to london at hud, an artist to the court. She comes to johnson and jane writes a letter of recommendation for her. Your brother, you must meet this woman. Shes wonderful. Abigail adams culture the queen of slots. [laughter] i just think this is a different class of open. She did not think that was cool, the wayne jane th that thought t was cool. Yes, here with the scarf. Were books of a just common at that time . Because i saw that on that page, her death was also written. Oh, yeah. Her death is written because her grandson inherits the book of ages and he puts his own stuff in it. So yes. Actually there were no birth certificates, no vital statistics. So if you wanted to know when anyone was born you had to write it down. Because most people do know even how old they were. And very few people knew their actual birthday. If you have a mother or father who want to know that you might take a scrap of paper and then put in a bible. Most people have a bible or an almanac. People kept these records all the time. They just want to remember how old everybody was are what years people died. You would often do in your bible. So by the 19th century, like can my family bible we have a page that has a family record like its printed and youre supposed to write in all these things. Of bibles and become printing, they begin printing these pages as a form you fill out because the people used to use a blank page whats unusual for jane is she counted her own little book, made her own little book out of it. Other people do that. She wasnt the only person to do that. Ive never seen anybody call it a book of ages. The phrase seems to be her own. It was used liturgically in the book of the dead. So its kind of a devotional form rather than pure chronicle. But yes, people would very often do that. She offers prayers. We didnt look at these together. Its not just a list. Thats another purpose, which is are interesting. She stopped using it in 1767, long before she dies because she just cant stand it anymore. Her favorite daughter dies and thats when she writes what have i more . She closes the book and thats it. Theres a woman way, way in the back. You, yes, you. [inaudible] spin i have a very good question to could you tell me where the letters are . All, the letters are largely at the american philosophical society. I realize this is asking for speculation, but if Jane Franklin had been mld think she wouldve had similar success to her brother or do you think she wouldve lived her life like Benjamin Franklins other nine brothers who didnt have the same opportunities . You know, i dont think we can know. We cant know. The other way to post the same question is, was she an undiscovered genius . But the kind of starving of ones intellect that is being deprived of any kind of education for years and years and that way. When franklin says, i opened up the Library Company of philadelphia and a devote an hour or two if each evening. Youre like ive got 12 kids, i can devote an hour each evening. Like, i think, in other words, i find a more interesting question. Like what are the limits in the life that she did lead, not what it been possible it should lead a completely other life . Partly just because im like i cant know that i dont want to ask you because it makes me sad that i cant know. I like to ask questions i did get an answer to. She writes a lot like i possibly can write your letter because im too busy. He will be like im at the cotton of congress so i am busy, too. [laughter] with the tshirt here in the center. What sparked your interest in Jane Franklin . Thats a great question. I grew up on franklin street. You grow up in like franklin that goes i dont know what all of you are not interested in Jane Franklin. The street i grew up on in the town of massachusetts was laid out on the 200 pursuit of franklins birth in 19 or six. Franklin does, franklin that. It gets tiresome but at some point, i was the kind of little kid, you read a book that you liked and didnt like thank god, theres like 40 other books so im set. Like youre going to need every book or whatever the so i still have that, just a very childish in but like an adult when i read somebody whos work i like, its like staying too long for dinner with someone that you are enjoying dinner with. We have time to listen to you. When i discovered Benjamin Franklin as a writer, i thought i could spend some time with this guy. So the Benjamin Franklin papers were published volume by volume and it went to the library one day and sat down on the floor and pulled one blunder after another. Reading from beginning. Is delightful, charming, generous, fortunate, brilliant, sly, sneaky. You know, you know the man. Okay, but every other letter was to this woman named jane. Whom i had never heard of and i thought, did i miss something . Like who the hell is jamie . Or almost no respect from her because they dont print those. So i became fascinated by that and then i found this book had been written that won the Pulitzer Prize for 1938 computable blog every against the rest of his life trying to find change papers because he felt the same way that i felt a day in the library to have his appointed Library Committee of the american philosophical society. He donated his time, tried to find those papers. Those papers that were sold in london. Otherwise theyre still be in private hands. So i was kind of relieved to know i wasnt the only person in the tigers and the universe that had noticed jane but is only the second. And i didnt work on the project for a long, long time. I told my mother. I wrote this long essay in the new yorker the past summer about how my mother kept saying why are you going to write a book about Jane Franklin . Listened why no one could write that book. She would be like, write the book. Whatever, get this done. And then i had made progress over the years and abandon them. I have abandoned it like 10 times. Im not a sad person, and i found pashtun phrase mentioned anything about all the deaths your it scared the hell out of me. Then my father died and my mother was very ill and i thought, i must come you know, this i must do. And i rode as fast as i could. But the book is a monument to my mother. Could you talk a little bit about the research . I mean, you said over and over how scared the information was. Where did you go . How did you find this person . Well, franklin is easy to find. You just have to walk down Market Street. There will be this guy. He will have these classes. Like its out to get away from franklin but its more than like he looms so large as a myth. It wasnt the finding the source of the resources are so very few i quickly realized i had gotten to the end of them. I did find things that no one had i found books she had owned. I when they found the museum of fine arts in boston, ive gone and made an apartment to look at this ring that was listed in the catalog as having once belonged the Benjamin Franklin. And im thinking, franklin is not wearing a ring. Not in the portrait. And i went to see it and it was a morning rain. When someone died you would get out of the moment. It had aged in it the name of the person that was being mourned, and the day of his death and jane had actually given to rein to her granddaughter and that will. And it was a changeling, and like a lot of things that once belonged to jane and italy survive because it had come in this case a totally acacias connection to Benjamin Franklin. So amazing change the catalog entry. But also when they were not looking i took the ring out of its case and put it on. Im never going to be let in there again. [laughter] but i thought no one has asked to look at this ring in two centuries. Im going to put like it was tiny. Like i couldnt, i could barely get it on my pinky. I dont have any portrait i thought she must have been tiny, tiny because she wore the ring. And i was so glad that it didnt fit me. [laughter] i dont think thats funny. That was supposed to be sad. Like it, i dont, i find her life so said, i just dont want to think about being a cramped and constrained and confined. Although i did have some to me some very magical in the moments. It was more, the question, it took a lot of years to find the spirit but to me the real obstacle was its asymmetry. Heres Benjamin Franklin, hes wonderful. Hes wonderful. You know, we know what he was doing at 3 00 on the 24th of january. Jane, we know nothing. And also its not wonderful. And we live in a world of inequality, of grotesque inequality. We cannot bear to think about the as a historian its hard to think about. But i felt, here is the turning point aside from my parents passing was we really, as a community, as a people, really need to understand inequality a whole lot better. Historians out to be able to help us do that. Thats a good place to close so thank you all very much. [applause]