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