Benjamin Franklin

Poor Richard’s Women: An Intimate Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

September 30, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin — the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era — but not about his love life. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years.

Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England. [Read more…] about Poor Richard’s Women: An Intimate Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin Documentary with Producer David Schmidt

May 4, 2022 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast, David Schmidt, a senior producer at Florentine Films and a senior producer on Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin, joins Liz to investigate documentary filmmaking and the life of Benjamin Franklin. [Read more…] about Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin Documentary with Producer David Schmidt

The Albany Congress of 1754: Native People, Colonists & the Monarchy

January 26, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

William Shirley was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, appointed by the King of England. Shirley had been a British official in England serving on negotiating committees with French officials determining boundaries. This had led Shirley to a thorough dislike of the French.

He was very aggressive and had been a stalwart advocate of invading Canada and driving the French out of North America. Shirley had written a strong criticism of the New York Congress for its resistance to an invasion of Canada in 1748. He was upset when New Jersey and Rhode Island refused to cooperate in the invasion because they were not threatened. [Read more…] about The Albany Congress of 1754: Native People, Colonists & the Monarchy

Ben Franklin’s Life In London

January 26, 2022 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706, to Abiah Folger and Josiah Franklin. Although Franklin began his life as the youngest son of a youngest son, he traveled through many parts of what is now the northeastern United States and the Province of Quebec and lived in four different cities in three different countries: Boston, Philadelphia, London, and Passy, France. [Read more…] about Ben Franklin’s Life In London

The Joy of Eating: Billy Possum, Fat Men Clubs & Obesity History

December 20, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 4 Comments

Weightism is a bias or discrimination against people who are overweight. It is based on a set of stereotypes about the abilities of overweight individuals and includes prejudices that they are self-indulgent, socially inept, and mentally slow. Obesity was judged to be incompatible with intelligence and acuity.

The weight stigma is a relatively modern one. Fat shaming started in the 1950s. In March 1954, Life magazine featured an article entitled “The Plague of Overweight” in which obesity was described as the most serious health problem of the day. Without any further consideration the condition was linked to gluttony. At the time, only around three percent of Americans were considered overweight.

From the Renaissance onward, obesity had suggested wealth and power. It pointed at the means to supply and enjoy the luxury of food. Plumpness equaled prosperity. If one’s body was a temple, then being the size of a cathedral signaled status. Physical proportion was a badge of economic and physical well-being, both in individual and national terms. [Read more…] about The Joy of Eating: Billy Possum, Fat Men Clubs & Obesity History

Rise and Fall of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica

September 7, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 2 Comments

In 1719, Étienne [Stephen] De Lancey built his house on a site at 54 Pearl Street on the corner of Broad Street which had been given to him by his father-in-law Stephanus van Cortlandt, New York’s Mayor. The small yellow bricks used in its construction were imported from the Dutch Republic.

In 1762, his heirs sold the property to Samuel Fraunces who converted the home into a tavern, first named the Queen’s Head and later known as Fraunces Tavern. [Read more…] about Rise and Fall of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica

Polygamy: An Early American History

July 22, 2020 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Polygamy is not a practice that often comes to mind when many of us think about early America. But it turns out, that polygamy was a ubiquitous practice among different groups of early Americans living in 17th and 18th-century North America.

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Sarah Pearsall, a University Teaching Officer, Fellow, and Historian at the University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss the surprising history of polygamy in early North America, with details from her book, Polygamy: An Early American History (Yale University Press, 2019). [Read more…] about Polygamy: An Early American History

Whose Fourth of July?

July 1, 2020 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to the Rochester, New York Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and he famously asked “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we explore Douglass’ thoughtful question within the context of Early America: What did the Fourth of July mean for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?

In Praise of Printing And A Favorite Ben Franklin Typeface

March 30, 2020 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

Before long it will be three hundred years ago that James Franklin started printing the combative New-England Courant, employing his younger brother Benjamin as an apprentice. It set a precedent for independent newspaper publishing in the English colonies.

Demands for freedom of the press were ignored and the paper was suppressed in 1726 – but once ink starts flowing, autonomous thinking cannot be reversed. [Read more…] about In Praise of Printing And A Favorite Ben Franklin Typeface

Young Benjamin Franklin (BFW Favorites)

December 18, 2019 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became?

Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because as a man of “variety” he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science, business, philosophy, philanthropy, and politics.

But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life.

Revolutionary Print Networks: Printing the News, 1763-1789

June 26, 2019 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

For the American Revolution to be successful, it needed ideas people could embrace and methods for spreading those ideas. It also needed ways for revolutionaries to coordinate across colonial lines. How did revolutionaries develop and spread their ideas? How did they communicate and coordinate plans of actions?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), joins us to investigate the roles printers and their networks played in developing and spreading ideas of the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Print Networks: Printing the News, 1763-1789

Young Benjamin Franklin (Historians Podcast)

February 22, 2019 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, Pulitzer Prize finalist Nick Bunker discusses his book, Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity. The book follows Franklin through age 41 and his first electrical discoveries. [Read more…] about Young Benjamin Franklin (Historians Podcast)

The Culinary Adventures of Benjamin Franklin

January 23, 2019 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Can food help us better understand the people and events of the past? Can we better understand a person like Benjamin Franklin and who he was by the foods he ate?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History Rae Katherine Eighmey, an award-winning food historian, author, and cook, joins us to explore the culinary tastes and habits of Benjamin Franklin and colonial British Americans with details from her book Stirring the Pot with Benjamin Franklin: A Founding Father’s Culinary Adventures (Smithsonian Books, 2018). [Read more…] about The Culinary Adventures of Benjamin Franklin

Young Benjamin Franklin

October 17, 2018 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became?

But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Nick Bunker, author of Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity (Penguin Random House, 2018), joins us to explore Benjamin Franklin’s early life and how family, childhood, and youthful experiences shaped him as a scientist and diplomat. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/207

Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin Podcast

January 24, 2018 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

We remember Benjamin Franklin as an accomplished printer, scientist, and statesman. Someone who came from humble beginnings and made his own way in the world. Rarely do we remember Franklin as a man of faith.

Benjamin Franklin spent more time grappling with questions of religion, faith, virtue, and morality in his writing than about any other topic.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Thomas S. Kidd, a Professor of History at Baylor University and author of Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father (Yale University Press, 2017), leads us on a detailed exploration of the religious life of Benjamin Franklin. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/169

Bifocal Lenses and Ben Franklin

December 1, 2017 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, Dan Weaver says a 1768 letter to colonial leader Sir William Johnson casts doubt on the claim by some historians that Ben Franklin invented bifocal eyeglasses. Weaver is history columnist for the Amsterdam NY Recorder, president of Historic Amsterdam League and a trustee of Old Fort Johnson, one of Sir William’s homes.

Listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about Bifocal Lenses and Ben Franklin

Deborah Read Franklin And Sally Franklin Bache

April 1, 2015 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Have you heard the saying “behind every great man stands a great woman?”

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Vivian Bruce Conger, the Robert Ryan Professor in the Humanities at Ithaca College, joins us to explore the two great women that Benjamin Franklin had standing behind and beside him: his wife, Deborah Read Franklin, and his daughter, Sally Franklin Bache. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/022

Benjamin Franklin

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