Conversation that we have publicly on these issues. Any good news . There are some places. Washington d. C. Is one of them. They have the crem della crem public defender systems. Bronx public defenders has started a National Movement to limit caseloads and to try to deal more holistically with all of the issues that defendants might be facing like if they have come into the system because they have been stealing, and thats related to drug addiction or homelessness or whatever. Those new programs are dealing with the source of the problem, to look at the root of the problem and to deal more broadly with the people that come through their system. So there is some good news out there. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. Next jill lepore recalls the life of an gmen franklins younger sister Jane Franklin. She maintained a longstanding correspondence with her brother benjamin. Book of ages. This event is about one hour. [applause] good evening. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. I know i have to join facebook just to see the picture of your dog. Because i have to post some comments. Its so nice to be here. Thank you all for coming. Its such a treat first of all to be in philadelphia, franklins hometown to talk about jane who once visited here. As much as she loved boston but also just to be here in a Public Library and celebrate this space and all that it stands for. So thank you to the library. [applause] i am hoping that none of you have ever heard of jane frank and because i want because i want to tell you the story for life and we dont have that much time to do that. She led a rich and fascinating life and im going to try to give you whirlwind tour of it. We will be looking at some slides and i even have props. That is how i teach. So said back and listen to this tale that i 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. Andy centered to instructions for conduct in her own eye exam. You know when youre at the optometrist and they put that horrible thing over your face and they flip the lenses and you have to say which is better, a master of the mac and look the same . This is what an gmen wrote to chain. Take out a pair to time and hold one of the glasses first against one eye and then against the other looking on some small print. If the first pair suits neither i put them up again before you open the second. The question this raises for me is the biographer trying to write about benjamin and Jane Franklin what does it mean to be one of the pair and not the fellows . Benjamin franklin was born not in philadelphia but in boston my hometown in 1706. Would he been a red sox fan . I think thats clear. His sister jane was born six years later. This is from the Franklin Family record book chronicling their births. He was the youngest of 10 sons. She was the youngest of seven daughters. That is 17. [laughter] bennie and jenny they were called when they were little, no two people and their family were more alike. Jane thought of her brother is her second self she said. They were like twins in a way like a pair of eyes. They posed a biographical dilemma because their lives could hardly been more different. Benjamin franklin ran away from home at 17. His sister never left. He taught himself to write with wit and force and style. She never learned how to spell. The day he turned 21 he wrote her a letter. She was 14. He getting a correspondence that would last until his death 63 years later. He became a printer, a philosopher in the statesman. She became my wife, a mother and a widow. He signed the declaration of independence, the treaty of paris and the constitution. She strains to form the letters of her name. He loved no one longer. She loved no one better. Benjamin franklin wrote more letters to his sister jane then he wrote to anyone else. And all her life, she wrote back letter after letter filled with news and recipes and gossip and when she was truly sorely vexed and only then with her the string opinions about politics. Franklin as you know, i think you guys know more about Benjamin Franklin than i do but you know he wrote the story of his life the private life of Benjamin Franklin was called one was first published. Oh well turn tale about a boy who runs away from a life of poverty and obscure the end cramped pious boston and leaves all that behind. He leaves his home behind it leaves his sister behind, leave cigarettes behind in leaves the past behind to become an enlightened education independent man of the world. A man of books, and men of learning, a man of science, a man of papers, a man of letters, a spectacle. 1771 the year Benjamin Franklin sent his sister jane eyeglasses is the year he began writing the story of his life. It wasnt published until his death in 1790 the Benjamin Franklins autobiography is one of the most important autobiographies ever written. It helped invent the word. The word autobiography wasnt coined until 1770. His was a private life made public. Its also an allegory about america. The story of a man is the 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 . 1 2 of the world does not know how the other half lives franklin once wrote. His sister i think is his other half and is his life as an allegory, so is hers but an allegory for what . Her life was not a spectacle. Many of you have never heard of her before. Its difficult to even see her live next to his. Her life seems so tiny. His famous match only by her obscure the end he is a spectacle. She is a spec. But i wondered then might there be a kind of eyeglasses that could help us to see them both at once . No portrait of jane survives like this iconic torture to franklin. She cant be seen in that way. There are dozens of portraits of her brother. His popularity he earned from france has occasioned so many portraits that my face is wellknown as that of the moon. She wrote back yeah and its just as changeable. He liked very much to be portrayed wearing his spectacles. They were kind of his trademark for him. The historian found that franklin is wearing his spectacles and more than one third of the surviving portraits. This is the case when there are almost no other portraits of anyone wearing eyeglasses. Its a quite unusual thing. Franklin likes this portrait the best. Why did he care so much about being seen wearing the spectacles . The story of spectaclespectacle s in early america is the story about reading. Spectacles worn emblem of a life of the mind. People use classes as a magnifier but along time but pieces of glass cut in a frame to be held before your eyes became common commodities not until well into the 17th century when they were used exclusively for reading. If you are literate you might have eyeglasses. He would never have eyeglasses if you were not literate. The rise of eyeglasses than is inset oval from the rise of printing and expansion of literacy. People use spectacles to read rented books. You can see the first popular advertisement for spectacles in london in 164040. This is what eyeglasses look like and how they were described. These were called ridge spectacles that would just sit on the verge bridge of your nose. Theres a great portrait from early new england the minister of dorchester in 1670 holding them in his hand. You can see they are very tiny. But they are always in these portraits associated 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 only learned people have them in the age of isaac newtons op dixit inspired all kinds of different thinking about seeing and the active site, things and ideas about perspective and point of view and distortion. John dunn observed that one looks at spectacles with spectacles made small things bigger. Inking about them inspired reflection on the nature and boundaries of the self and of moral imagination. John locke wrote i think we may as rationally hope to see other mans eyes as other mans understanding. Writing in the aptly named spectator wrote that a mans eyes are spectacles to those who look at him to read his heart. If you could see through the eyes into the heart. Wearing spectacles than is not a small thing for Benjamin Franklin. It marked him as a man of discernment. More plainly they marked him as a prodigious reader which he was. Jane said when he was a young child he had learned to read and he studied incessantly and was addicted to reading. Their father was the poor candle maker but he decided to send bennie to school because he was clearly so brilliant. He sent his other sons to. But decided to give a tenth of his sons to the church which meant sending him to harvard and teaching in latin and greek. So he entered school, Grammar School and stud in latin studied latin and greek to prepare for the ministry. Frank and spent two years there before his father pull them out and sent him to a cheaper school and pull them out of that school too in order to keep and at home to help make candles. Franklin hated it. Jennys parents could not center to school at all even if they had been of mine too. No Public School in the 18th century boston admitted girls. Beginning in 1701 the law required the family out to teach boys to read them right in girls to read. Girls were not commonly taught to write an 18th century. They were taught instead to. Three and five women could not even sign their names. When you think about it knowing how to sign your name is not an indication of letters he. Its just a mechanical act. Most of those three in five women a good sign their names could not actually write. The boston newspaper printed a dialogue between a thriving tradesmen and dislike about the education of their daughter, a glimpse of 18th century ideas about women. The mother wanting to send their daughter to school they husband refusing saying let her read a chapter in the bible. Maker expert in prayers that god may keep her from the devil snares and teacher was useful, how to roast, toast and boil and mix of putting two so to mend to scrub and earn and not to spend. I tell my wife once more this was Jane Franklins education. She was bred to read needle and thread three she dipped the candles, the role that her brother hated and she boiled soap. Why on earth did Benjamin Franklin one day need to center spectacles . Girls never learned to read and to write so wise to jane oneday need lassas . Jane franklin did learn to read because most girls did as she was no ordinary reader. She read passionately and read the whole of her life read she learned how to write which was quite an unusual thing. I think her brother taught her. Benjamin franklin from boyhood fought for his learning letter by letter book by book, candle by cattle. Candle by candle. It was cruel in his kindness because when he left the lessons ended. In 1717 when jenny was five for rather james set up a printing shop in boston. It was a godsend for Benjamin Franklin because here at last was a. For oak ridge boy whose family were to war to send them to harvard. He became his brothers apprentice and he moved out of the house and to a room above his brother shop. He was 12 when jenny was six. Being a printers apprentice gave franklin all kinds of opportunity to read and the best part of the apprenticeship. He read and he read every book that pass through that shop. He also read books that he borrowed from a friend of his named john collins. He sat up reading all night long. He and his friend john would. Books and stage debates as if they were university men. They used to pretend they were harvard students. The only debate he remembered well enough to write about in his autobiography was a debate he had with his friend john collins over the proprietary of educating the female in learning and about their abilities for study. Collins is of the opinion that it was improper as girls are unequal. Franklin disagreed. He took the contrary side. Maybe he was thinking of jane. In crafting his argument franklin wrote a book read a book called essays and projects. The establishment of an academy of for women. I have regretted the frivolousness of womens education. They are taught to read and maybe to write their names and that is the height of a womans education. He proposed an academy for one that would hold back such geniuses that would lead them to appear this is the argument he made in his debate with his best friend. Following his arguments for the need for a womans education. Frank and lost the argument. He had actually carried on a lot of the argument. He and his friend would bug each other in prose and change these letters. Franks father came across a pile of these letters and the critique and mental wrangling he was not anywhere as strong a writer is his friend john collins. Franklin learned a lesson about how to write an art you in the course of that debate but think about what that needs means. Benjamin franklin was improving his prose by arguing about the education of girls. His sister jane was at home dipping candles and stitching. Quietly though in the little time she could spare she seems to have been doing more. She once wrote to her brother i read as much as i dare. In 1721 jenny and johnnys brother bought his first pair of spectacles. He also started printing a newspaper. What benjamin to do was write in the newspaper. He knew his brother would never let him so he disguised his handwriting and disguised his name. The pen name he gave himself was silence dogood. She introduced herself that way up the art of biography. This is for this violence do good essay. They are so entertaining unless they contain something simpler and since there is little or nothing in my own i will not to hire readers with a particular relate the most material occurrences and according to my promise. Doesnt this make you want to read 18th century stuff . [laughter] this is so awesome. Isnt that awesome . Franklin wrote in the voice of mrs. Silence dogood a widow, a woman. She had to explain because she knew how to write how she came by her education. If you read any woman writing in 18th century the first thing she says is let me explain to how it is i can be 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 a minister had very liberal views about education beauty and effort beauty and effort than i be instructed in that knowledge and tonight we no, schmidt that could possibly be obtained such as the work writing arithmetic and observing. He gave me the free use of his library. It was well chose to inform the understanding and great and noble ideas. Silence dogood in explaining the story of her life said shed spent her childhood but the best of company and books. Think about this now. Jini is 10 and then he is 16. He he breaks out of of the litter a stage and this is the thing that franklin is most famous for writing disguised as a woman whose girlhood was spent reading books. Silence dogood with Jane Franklin. Benjamin franklin ran away from home in 1723 and came here to wonderful philadelphia. He was 17, jane was 11. She was a reader. She somehow inspired silence dogood. Was she a writer . Virginia was once asked what would have happened if William Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister . Lets imagine her name is judith. Well scape or so permission to invent judith shakespeare. Let us imagine since facts are so hard to come by she said. The girl is running and endearing as her. She was a bit match and it. I cant can do is Virginia Woolf accent but imagine a Virginia Woolf. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic. Its like bbc like fat dell and abbe. She picked up a book now and then. One of her brothers perhaps and read a few pages but then her parents came and told her to mend the stockings her minds this do and not moon about with books and papers. This is a thought experiment. A famous thought experiment. What would have happened if she were shakespeare . Before she was out of her teens she would be betrothed. She cried, like thats the worst possible thing. What does the wool stapler even do . She cried out that marriage was hateful to her and she was severely beaten by her father. Then he told her not to shame him in this matter of marriage. There were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him . How could she break his heart . In this fiction shakespeare does break her fathers heart. She becomes an actress, then she is seduced by a Theater Company manager. She is made with child by him and then woolf writes, who show measures the heat and violence of the poets hard when caught in tangled in a womans body like she killed herself one winters night. That is what happens to judith shakespeare. [laughter] so the question you might ask, is this what is going to happen to Jane Franklin . Judith shakespeare is a figment of virginia was imagination. Actually a rather modern and manly i. D. Idea of the self and of the author herself, solitary and unencumbered, a free man. Judith shakespeare killed herself because she was pregnant, because she could not reconcile at life of the mind or of the artist with the 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. And with scant record of her life is left has been saved only because she was Benjamin Franklin sister. A Jane Franklin is not a figment of my imagination. She was flesh and blood and milk in tears. Her brother ran a play and broke their fathers heart rate she would not, she could not. She didnt kill herself one winters night. She never gave herself that rope either. She had too many people to look after. She never left anyone behind. Her whole life she hardly ever left the house. She didnt have a room of her own until she was 69 years old. I write now in my own Little Chamber and nobody in the house there to disturb me she wrote, delighted. She was very happy to have that room but not having a sinner is and why she didnt write more about it. In 1723 after Benjamin Franklin ran away and settled here in philadelphia opening a printing shop like his brother, a revolution in eyewear began. When this kind of eyeglasses called the temple spectacle was invented it had temple arms. Franklin started selling these kinds of spectacles at a shop in philadelphia in 1730 when he was 24 which is also when he began wearing them. The same age when jane had needed to wear glasses. At first he probably only wear them for reading like most other people did that before long he started wearing them constantly. He would walk up and down Market Street wearing his eyeglasses and people would laugh. Do you know they are actually for reading . But he would use a different pair when he was outside so he could see distance. He realized he had two kinds of problems with the site. Not long after he began wearing spectacles Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals. He later explained i have formally to spare us to pare spectacles which i have shifted. Finding this change troublesome i is having to take up one pair of glasses have you were head reading glasses . Not having might appear sufficiently ready i had the glasses cut. Half associate in the same circle. At this means i wear my spectacles constantly. I dont have to move my eyes up or down with the proper glasses ready. Its almost as if franklin has left me a little clue explaining how to write a biography of two people who are very different like it when ocular biography. I think theres a lesson here in the writing of history. Few people size or fellows fellows. Franklin which was sister that day, our eyes look alike but they see differently. Almost everybody uses one i principally and the other for distant objects. One might be nearsighted and the other five. One day you might need to see far in one day you might need to senior. She needed two different lenses because she had two different eyes. The historic and needs to two different lenses too want to see it close and want to see far away one to write the life of the great man Benjamin Franklin and one to write the life of this woman. I was completely obsessed with this idea but when ocular biography when i was trying to write about Jane Franklin. Seen so many different problems that once were sold. If only i had a pair of these classes. I got to wondering what they looked like. There is actually no 18th century portrait of a woman actually wearing spectacles. There are however a few Women Holding them. And there is one of a woman, its always the glasses in the book. I am a learned woman and i know how to read is what this says. Im a very learned woman and i know how to read. This one is very Hillary Clinton. You know how shows has her glasses up like that . She looks like hillary went in. [laughter] so this is the closest i have found that the women wearing glasses. I am like rainy. I am brainy. Every 18th century picture of a Woman Holding spectacles that the book with them and they are quite similar. Anyway i decided i needed a pair of these classes. That would be helpful. Wouldnt you think that would be helpful . I bought these at an on line shop and i have them here. You will notice a shot. These are the glasses. [laughter] i was going to get my prescription put in them but it was too expensive. I cant see a thing. Id let them on and i would pass them around. Its a big crowd but use your imagination. If you have glasses, take your glasses off for a minute. It looks like a bookish crowd. Everybody has glasses. Okay, think about the way that wearing spectacles changes your sense of yourself. Put them back on. I cant read my notes. When you have your glasses on, think about how very few people had lassa so its a weird thing to put them on. It would he like google glass, like something really uncommon. When you put your glasses on you suddenly get in inside and outside to your head. Do you know what i mean . There is a window in the house of your soul. People really felt that way that it was you could see into someone do their glasses. Even if i were to put these Jane Franklin glasses on i could hear into Jane Franklins heart. So putting on my Jane Franklin bifocals i thought about Benjamin Franklin and i thought about Virginia Woolf. And then i looked at them sidebyside. That is pretty interesting right they are, isnt it . Because you can see a posture, a pose, a worldview, a notion of a writers life. This is a vision of how an author works. This is a vision of the author as solitary and alone and isolated in a room of her own with papers on her desk. The author unencumbered by anyone elses needs. That is the story told in both of these books, the very same story and 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. If there were a portrait of her would not look like this. She was heard larry ever alone and she also never wrote the story for life. It would have never occurred to her to do that. She did oncefor sheets to make a little look with 16 pages. I made a facsimile. I told you i had props. Im not going to pass this around because this is kind of precious to me. This is the actual size of Jane Franklins autobiography. Its four pages ripped out and folded and. I made it with fake 18th century paper and put them by my classes. I was trying really hard to transport myself. When i went to see this little book that jane made it exists an archive in boston, its very small. Its humble and its quite plain as you can see. On its first page she wrote three words, look at pages. What the hell does that mean . What does that mean . Its not an autobiography. Its a book of ages. Its a list of the births and deaths of her 12 children. It is a litany of grief or it is a record in grief of a life lived not rags to riches but rags to rags. The hardest thing about being in Jane Franklins book of ages is that it is 16 pages but as i turned them i discovered she had left most of its pages blank. There was nothing more to say. It was filled with despair. My glasses were useless. Why was i think and i could actually know this woman and write about her . But i put my glasses on and i thought about bifocals and i looked at those pages one more time. Sitting in that archive holding the sheets stitched together with these course threads looking at that blank page with Jane Franklin spectacles i began to think that Jane Franklin actually have something to say after all. So very delicately i once more turned a little pages of her book of ages. Then i saw the history of books and papers in the history of reading and writing. Abe book of ages about ages of books. So i just want to tell you a little bit about how that works. I thought first about the book itself. Her paper was made from rags soaked tin pulp and then strained and dried. Her thread was made from flax spun, twisted and died on the table she had laid down pools captain smoked it with the palms of her hands. She creases and folded it and folded it again. She pressed it open and she used a needle toa scene. It is no thicker than a patch of her lap but then she dipped the pen slip from me the other of that bird and wrote book of ages. In this version hand, the hand that she would have learned in the book by her brother printed in philadelphia called the american instructor, a young mans best companion. Boys learn how to write the books of Benjamin Franklin printed. She turned the page and wrote Jane Franklin born march 27, 1712. Her writing is difficult to read so im going to give you a transcription here. She wrote edward mencken married to Jane Franklin 1727. The book of ages, her age is the first h. We learned. March 27, 1712 married july 27, 1757. 15 years in four months. She was a child when she married the legal age for marriage was 16 and 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 marry at the age of 15 and was also illegal. Edward makin that man she married was poor. He was a sadler. She never once wrote anything about him expressing the least bit of affection. She hardly wrote it out him at all. She wrote their first born wednesday june the fourth, 1729. And then added one line more, and died may 18, 1730. The child of her childhood died three weeks shy of his first birthday. A dead child as a sidenote more surprising surprising than a broken picture in a sermon called wrights thoughts in sad hours. One in four children died for the age of 10. They were wrapped in linen, dipped in melted wax while a toxic pine was elton painted black. Church and span prayers for the dead end at the gravesite there would be no sermon nor ministers warned ought there be any tears. The advice of christ to a distressed mother mourning the death of her son cited luke chapter 17, verse 13, weep not. The remains of a life like this. What remains of the body after death but remains are unpublished papers and their descendents, children are our remains. The boston post wrote my little babes, my dear remains but she called them out ill formed offspring of my feeble brain. Her words were all that her children would one day have left of her. She wrote a chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, kiss this paper. Jane did not know how to write of poland. She couldnt have afforded a gravestone for the child. Instead she went home and wrote the book of remembrance. Kiss this paper. In 1733 Jane Franklin turned 21. She came of age. From philadelphia her Brother Center the gift of a book a copy of the Ladies Library. On its flyleaf chain rode with great pride chain me come given to her by her brother in 1733. Franklin of course it is all of the new founded the first Lending Library and american for Libra Company and philadelphian printed up charges for borrowers. Jane had her own ideas about libraries prevented title page she inscribed her name. She inscribed her name inside jane me come. She wants lent the second going to franklins wife writing on this page borrowed to sister me come so she would be sure she would get it back. This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study for which i set set apart an hour to each day and prepared in some degree the learned education my father intended for me. I think you meant the Ladies Library did the same for his sister and it only went so far. Franklin had founded in philadelphia gentlemans library. To his sister he gave the Ladies Library of rokus radical premise is stated on the first page and the first volume which read, it is a great injustice to shut books of knowledge from the eyes of women. Open the book, kiss the paper. Jane franklin gave worth to 12 children in 24 years. Her belly swelled and emptied and swelled again. Her filled and emptied and filled again. Her days were days of flash a little legs and arms and the little hands touched around her neck. A baby in her arm arms she stared into kettles and tubs swaying. The days passed in the months two years. In the book of ages sheep pressed her children to ages. Her husband fell into debt. He may have gone mad. Two of her sons became violently insane and they had to be locked up. Jane and her children lived to parents as she nursed in their old age but she gave birth to 12 children 24 years and buried 10 of them. She wrote to her brother, sorrows roll upon me like the waves upon the sea. Im hardly allowed to fetch, time to fetch my breath. Im broken with reach upon breach. And cheap thanked god citing job what have i more . She found comfort in book of ages and the books are Brother Center. She read in she read paradise figures trying to reconstrureconstru ct her library. She usually what her name in the books like her brothers experiments on electricity. She once wrote to him and asked them to send her all the pamphlets and papers that have been printed at she wanted to read all the political pieces he had ever written. He wrote back, i could have as easily but he sent what he could. It was politics that she loved best. I give you looks of philosophy and politics. When i am dull i take one up and read and it seems as though im conversing with you are hearing you. She once wrote, i find pleasure in that. She asked for books written by other authors. She read novels and history. She wrote sermons and speeches. She read whatever she could get her hands on. She read and tell her eyes strained. Janes eyes were like her two brothers. She would have needed reading glasses by the age of 24 but women of course did not commonly wear spectacles. Its not that you just dont see them in portraits. The inventories of people belonging, women did not own spectacles. In 1771 jane what the Benjamin Franklin asked him to send her to 13 pair. Eisenger massachusetts for the first time required to earls be taught to write. Ideas about 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 the rise in the female ownership of eyeglasses. All although portraits section of Women Holding classes these portraits are from the 1780s and 1790s. Before you see before this you would never see glasses because women were never thought to be learned in any way. In the company of books uganda for life Jane Franklin became a radical. The reader kept radical ideas of 18th century. I just want to tell you one last story about book she read in 1786 when she was 74 years old. She raised her children and her ran children and the reg grandchildren and buried most of them. She put on her spectacles and read look written by Richard Price ellwells clergyman. One objection to the idea that everything in life is stated by providence is the failure to thrive. Many parish in the boom and anymore are nipped in the bloom he wrote. A spider lays 600 eggs yet very few growing to spiders and so too for humans. Thousands of clarkson newtons, geniuses have probably been lost to the world and lived and died and ignorance in minas merely for want of being placed in favorable situations and enjoying the proper advantages. No one dies for not but that doesnt mean suffering cant be protested. With her spectacles resting on her nose jane would a letter to her brother. Dr. Price thinks thousands of clarks and newtons have been brought to the world she wrote. To the she added an opinion of her own. Benjamin franklin knew and his sister knew even better but very few ever broke through 300 seeds to make one at home, 17 children of josiah franklin, how many . Very few, barely none, only one or possibly two. Jane franklin died in 1794. What remains of her life lacks her book of ages is stored and archived in boston. Her spectacles did not survive. Of the hundreds of letters more than half have been lost and the rest are here in philadelphia. The bulk of correspondence between benjamin and Jane Franklin surfaced in the years 1928 when 59 letters were auctioned by socrates in london. In 1948 the year the letters were auctioned virginia will turned to the question. She just finished writing orlando appeared at either frieda took a theme she had long wrestled with especially in the lives of the obscure meditation bookshelves faded out of date obsolete libraries biographies of nobodys. Wolf wrote the obscure sleep on the wall slouching against each other as if they were too drowsy to stand upright. It was in october of 1928 that virginia was delivered a series of lectures to women undergraduates at Cambridge University and soon after published. What she wanted to know what it happened that shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister called judith . I have always wondered where she got that idea. I think maybe virginia was casting about for ideas for lecture series rummaging about in bookstores came across a catalog from sothebys london whose entry read the most marked one extensive series of letters written by Benjamin Franklin to his sister jane. I like to think in order to read those words in order to imagine judith and William Shakespeare to think about jane and Benjamin Franklin. Virginia was headfirst to put on her spectacles. Thank you. [applause] [applause] i would be delighted take take questions. If youd could wait for a microphonmicrophon e to arrive to you that would be terrific. Just raise your hand. Yes, in the green. Hi. I have a question and its great that you did this. Im wondering if then franklin ever returned 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 . What the rivka questions. This is why i talk come to philadelphia to talk about the franklins. Yes, he joked that he visited boston every year that contain the digit three. Which he did, he went in 1723, 33, 43 and i think that was it. He went in 23 to off that it, it rents are and then he went in 33 twofisted chain and brocker the Ladies Library that year. I dont know why he went and 43. He was deputy postmaster general every time he stayed with jane he got an Honorary Degree from harvard which must have felt good after not being able to afford to go. He saw her every 10 years but they actually spent time together because when the revolution began in boston was occupy by the british jane fled to she packed her belongings into little trunks and fled the city saving all the letters that franklin had sent to her. She fled first to rhode island and then john adams got word to Benjamin Franklin and that jane had survived the attack. Franklin was in the Continental Congress and he made it necessary that somehow he had to meet George Washington in cambridge. So he went up to get jane and brought her back to philadelphia. She spent the beginning of the revolution and warren philadelphia. The Continental Congress is meeting and jane is fair. The problem is its worse because they dont write letters. As a historian you hate it when people [laughter] and the nephews. Janes third son she named her third son after her brother. This is what you would commonly do. Her third son Benjamin Mecom became a printer. He set him up with a print shop in antigua. Its a very convoluted tale. Benjamin mecom is one of the sons that goes finally insane. Mecom keeps failing and franklin really want him to succeed so he can take care of his mother. There is a gentleman way back here. Can you just wait for the microphone, please . Thanks. Do you have any knowledge as to whether or not jane and Abigail Adams had any relationship . Obviously they knew of each other i would assume. Yeah. Well, franklin knew john adams and john adams frankly hated franklin. Its like did my mother know Hillary Clinton . Is a completely different economic circle. Jane addams is the poor woman struggling as a widow and Abigail Adams was a learned and sophisticated woman. She traveled the world with john adams and went to london and paris with him. Just some of more cosmopolitan person so i have no reason to believe they would have ever known one another. The people that jane liked and i have a chapter in the book about this fascinating wax artist named Patience Wright who jane adores because she makes these wax people which jane makes soap and making wax into people is a little bit like that. She heats up the wax by putting it between her thighs. She gives birth to these light heads. [laughter] so jane thinks this is awesome and she just thinks that the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. She writes franklin a letter. Patients husband died and she has to be a to the courts or she comes to boston and jane writes a letter of recommendation to her. Dear brother you must meet her. Apical Abigail Adams calls Patience Wright the queen of. This is a different class of woman. She did not think that was cool. [laughter] yes, here with a scarf. Were books of ages, and at that time because i saw on that page her death was also written. Yeah, her death is written because her grandson inherits the book of ages. There were no birth certificates and no Vital Statistics so if you wanted to know when anyone was born you had to write it down. Most people didnt know how old they were but very few people actually knew their birth date. If you had a family like a mother or father they might take a scrap of paper and write these things down and slip into it look. Most people would have the viable or an almanac. People kept these records all the time. If they wanted her number how old everybody was or what year they died you often put it in the bible. Bye bye the 19th century like in my family bible we have a page in the family heard, it printed piece blank and you are supposed to in these things. Bibles began printing these is a form you fill out. People just used to use it line pages. What is unusual for jane is that she kept it in her own little book. But other people did that too. I have never seen anybody call it book of ages. The phrase seems to be her own and it is used liturgically to mean a book of the dead so its a devotional form rather than a pure chronicle. People would very often do that. She offers prayers. Its not just a list. And thats another purpose which is very interesting. She stops using them in 1767 long before she dies. That is why the pages are blank. Her favorite daughter dies and that is when she writes what have i more and she closes the book and thats it. Theres a woman play, way in the back there. Ive a very quick question. Could you tell me where the letters are . The letters are largely here at the american historical society. Hi. I realize this is asking for speculation but if Jane Franklin had been mailed to you think she would have had similar success to her brother or do you think she would have lived her life like franklins other nine brothers who didnt have the same opportunities wax. You now, i dont think we can know. I guess another way to pose the same question is was she an undiscovered genius . The kind of starving of ones intellect that is being deprived of any kind of an education for years and years and that way, when franklin says i opened up the Library Company and philadelphian devoted an hour or two each evening. She has 12 kids. I cant devote an hour each evening. In other words i find that more interesting question. What are the limits of the possible in the life that she did leave . Just because i am an empirical person, i cant know that so i wont ask it because it makes me sad. I kind of feel like i can understand. She writes a camp possibly write you a letter because im just a bit busy. I am in the Continental 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 st. You grew up in franklin towns. I dont know why all of you arent interested. The street i grew up on in the town of massachusetts was laid out at the turn of century in franklins birth. Franklin this in franklin that it gets tiresome. I was the kind of little kid who you have, you read a book that you like. This person has written 40 other looks. So i still have that. Its a very childish thing but as an adult when i read somebody his world work i like is like staying too long for dinner with somebody. We have time. So when i discovered Benjamin Franklin as a writer i thought i could spend some time with this guy. The Benjamin Franklin papers published volume by volume since the 1950s. I went to the library one day and sat down and pulled one volume down after another. Reading from the beginning of his life to the end and he is delightful. He is charming, generous, fortunate, really and, slide, sneaky. You know the man. So that was fun but every other letter was to this woman named jane who ive never heard of. Did i miss something . Who in the hell is jane mecom . There were almost no letters back from her. Its franklins papers, not janes paper so i became fascinatefascinated by that and then i found this look that won the pulitzer prize, the beautiful biography of Benjamin Franklin. He felt the same way that i did that day in the library. He donated his time trying to find those papers. The papers sold in sothebys in london, the guy who bought them brought them to philadelphia otherwise they would still be in private hands. I was kind of relief to know i was the only person in the universe that had noticed jane. But i was only the second. And i didnt work on the project for a long time. I wrote this long essay in the new yorker this past summer about how my mother kept saying why are you going to write the book about Jane Franklin . I said that hope is impossible. Listen to why no one could write that book and she would be like, so write the book. Like, get this done. I had made progress and i abandoned it like 10 times. It was really sad. Im not really a sad person and raising my own children and thinking about this death spooked the hell out of me. Then my father died and my mother was very ill. Then i said this i must do and i wrote it as fast as i could but i didnt finish it before my mother died. The book is a monument to my mother. About the research, you said over and over how scarce the information was. Where did you go . How did you find this person . Frank and its easy to find. You just have to walk down Market Street. He will have these classes. You know like its how to get away from franklin. He looms so large as the myth, it wasnt finding the sources. The sources are so few i quickly realized i had gotten to the end of them. I did find things that no one had. I found books that she had signed. I won day found in the museum of fine arts in boston, and made an employment with the curator to look at the ring that was listed in the catalog as having once belonged to franklin and im tanking franklin was not wearing a ring. And i went to see it in the morning. When someone died they would have a memento and it would have etched in it the name of the person, janes nephew and the day of his death. Jane had actually deeded that ring to her rent out her in her will. That specific ring and it was janes ring. Like a lot of things that i once belonged to change it only survived because in this case it had a fictitioufictitiou s connection to Benjamin Franklin so i made them change the entry. When they werent looking i took the ring out of its case and i put it on. [laughter] im never going to be let in there again. But i thought no one has asked to look at this ring in two centuries. And im going to put it on. [laughter] it was tiny. I could barely get it on my pinky