He worked as an advertising copywriter and wasnt a wisconsin election official when he is in writing. The fever of 1721 talks about the Worst Epidemic to hit boston. Including a controversial but effective smallpox inoculation. They call the fever of 1721 informative and the wall street journal talked about it a deeply engaging account. Please please help me welcome our speaker. [applause]. I am a wisconsin election official, im not in wisconsin today, there have been out an election. I had to vote absentee so i dont know if that makes me a former wisconsin election official or not. I would rather be here right now. By the way that is a nonpartisan position. Its a fancy word for poll worker. But it is cool because i get to register new voters so firsttime voters, naturally citizens, its prequel, i like a lot. All kidding aside. Lot. All kidding aside. Hillary, thank you very much for that introduction. Thank you to harvard, this is my first time here. Everybody has heard about the store. Now i have been Walking Around and it smells like a bookstore smells and it looks like a bookstore should look, im very happy and proud to be one of its guest so thank you again. Thanks to book tv. I have never been on book tv although i have watched it many times. It is a real pleasure to be featured on it. Of course, last but no lease thank you for coming. This is my fourth live event. The first one wasnt Madison Wisconsin where i currently where i currently reside and i have all of my friends go. Some of my wife sent her friends as well. Then we went to chicago. Chicago i got i got all of my inlaws to go. Judy has a very big family so she is one of seven or eight, seven, i you would think i know by now. She got her whole family to go. Then on sunday i did an event in madison, connecticut, another really fine independent bookstore. There, i am from connecticut originally but i had all of my old friends dated back from high school. There are people i have not even seen in a century what got to go there. Tonight, i dont think i know any of you. So that is very flattering, thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. When my sister learned that i was going to be presenting a book, promoting my book she gave me some advice. She said i suggest letting people know its your first appearance and if it goes over good do it every time you speak. So i would like to announce that this is my first appearance. But as i said, this is my fourth appearance but this is my first appearance in the town or in the general area of the place where my book takes place over me that is very cool. Also it is my first appearance at this store, my first appearance on book tv, so this is all just wonderful thing for me. I thought what i would do tonight is start with a very short reading, about eight minutes from the introduction of the book so that if you have not read the book you will get an idea of the scope of the story. There are three stories, three plot lines that i try to thread together in this book. I do not have time to talk about all of them obviously so i thought i would reprint the beginning of the book and give you a sense of what it is about then i will stop reading and talk a little bit about one of the characters from the book. Someone who Everybody Knows it but generally does not associate with boston. Then, then if i do not digress too much we should have plenty of time for discussion. So, i will start with a short reading, this is from the introduction to the fever of 1721. 1721 might be the most important anonymous year in the evolution of both modern medicine and american liberty. During the worst smallpox epidemic in boston history alone physician conducted an experiment that saved hundreds of lives, launched a new medical discipline, and helped pave the way for the eradication of the the worlds most devastating disease. The procedure he employed, known as very elation or inoculation would come over time the modified and expended despite other fatal diseases. Presenting the deaths of untold millions of persons. In 1721 though, it was considered primitive, barbaric, and tantamount to attempt to attempted murder. Town officials, medical establishment, and many ranking people opposed it. Some of those opponents would be willing to do anything to stop it. In april 1721, smallpox came to boston for the first time in nearly two decades. It arrived aboard the british worst ship. By the time it burned itself out a year later, approximately approximately half the towns 11000 inhabitants had been infected. Among those who had escaped death were nearly 300 men, men, women, children who had undergone inoculation. The procedure began with an incision within the skin of a healthy person. The incision was then implanted with it fluid from the pustules of someone who had broken out in smallpox. The idea was to produce an extremely mild and easily tolerable case of the disease and confirm unity for future infection. Prior prior to 1721, inoculation was virtually unknown in america and had never been attempted. The proposal to try it in boston came from an improbable source. A puritan minister. Mather, theological conservative and master of the fire and brimstone jeremiah was one of the most controversial figures in boston. Chiefly, as a consequence of his involvement in the salem witch hysteria. Generally regarded as a man prone to superstition and infatuation, he had come in the years since salem and had inherent enlightened science and enthusiastic monitor of the latest and most exotic medical developments in europe and beyond. The towns most esteemed position dismissed mathers proposal out of hand. But one dr. , boylston, accepted his challenge. In 1721 boylston was 22 years old and was successful as a physician and carry shop owner. He had achieva measured of fame for his uncommonly good track record with surgery but was relegated to a second tier of medical practitioners because he lacked to the educational and social pedigrees of many of his colleagues. Without bostons James Franklin one have never launch the new england current. For nearly four years the struggling austin printer had been looking for an opportunity to start a newspaper modeled on the best london publications. Weekly, weekly, though be literate, witty, provocative, and ambitious. The antithesis of the two generally dull and perfunctory boston newspapers already in circulation. In 1721 he leverage the publics hunger for information and opinions about inoculations to put his plan into action. If his current have been nothing more than reprint excerpts of essays by john trencher and thomas gordon, along with the spectator commentators of steel, it wouldve made a noteworthy contribution to the american journalism and american independence. But it went further. Sidebyside with the essays of the great political and social thinkers of the european enlightenment, james published distinctly distinctively american essays about himself and his friends. They presumed to criticize and satirize the religious and political establishments of colonial massachusetts with the boldness that scandalized their fathers generation. The onion, the daily show and colbert report. Indeed, an argument can be made that the American Social and political satire began with James Franklins newspaper. That everything that followed from mark twain, to will rogers, to matt stone and trey parker south park, it dissented from it. At the same time he was inventing American Social and political commentary, James Franklin was also helping invent the man generally regarded as the first american. Two years after being pulled school, 12yearold Benjamin Franklin had been indentured as his brothers apprentice. For the better part of the next three years as he learned the trade that would make him wealthy, then had embarked upon his storied selfeducation. His inspiration, and many of his text came from his brothers painting house which contained a large and Diverse Library of books and periodicals and served as a Meeting Place for James Franklins brother and friends. Their conversations about books and pamphlets, and debates about politics, religion, and social and social issues of the day tired young benjamins mind and imagination and he began to see his destiny unfold before him. Then, in 1721 to 15yearold was given a front row given a front row seat to the inoculation controversy. What he learned that debate him from his involvement in the newspaper that grew out of it changed his life and helped define him as an author, publisher, a political philosopher, an experimenter, and a diplomat. , and a diplomat. In a sense everything Benjamin Franklin ever needed to know he learned in 1721. By early 1722 he was 1722 he was ready to take the public stage. Disguised as a country widow named silence it is fitting that the Political Movement that would one day make Benjamin Franklin famous as an American Patriot was comingofage at the same time he was. The man behind the first organized push for the american independence was a dr. Turned businessman, turned politician. The son of one of the colonies wealthiest man and bluff politicians had inherited his fathers fortune, talent for politics, and better in resentment for england. For it 1684 cancellation of the original massachusetts charter which had given the colony a remarkable degree of political autonomy. Shortly after being elected to the massachusetts house of representatives for the first time in 1716, he had put all three of those inheritances to work opposing and obstructing the royal government. Before three years had elapsed the hard drinking cook had built americas first machine. He had also become the bane official one of who accused him of placing the man of countrymen with his republican notions in order for the dependency of new england. In 1721, smallpox epidemic sparked family ford insides. It also served as a catalyst for the invention of american journalists. The comingofage of Benjamin Franklin, and the beginning of american independence itself. This book is about that epidemic. In the political epidemic that followed. It is a story about five remarkable men and how their courage, during, vision, and desperation in time of crisis defined their destinies and hours. Thank you. So, as i mentioned i i have five main characters in this book and im going to concentrate the rest of my time before we have questions and answers unquestionably the most famous and beloved of those characters, someone who though generally associated with philadelphia was and remains very much a boston boy. Im talking of course about Benjamin Franklin. Franklin would leave boston when he was 17 years old and he would never live in a town again. For the rest of his life he would sometimes say some rather tough things about his hometown, famously he wrote to lafayette who named his daughter virginia in honor of the republic that he hoped the frenchman would be blessed with 12 more children so he could name one for each of the colonies. He was quick to add that he was word for the soul of any child named massachusetts. Which he said was too harsh even for boys so he never did return to boston permanently bet he made for extended visits to the town and he would have made a fifth. It is safe to say that the town was never far from his thoughts. Wherever he went, philadelphia, england, france, he england, france, he kept tabs on boston through correspondence and newspapers. Famously his friends Joseph Priestley wrote when he read about the military occupational boston enclosing the port in 1775, there were tears on his cheeks. In 1784 when he was in france, britain wrote a letter confessing not only that he longed to see boston again but at one point he had one point hope to be buried in boston. He did not return to boston. We know he know he was not buried in boston. What he did remember the town and his will. I think a lot of people are not aware that he bequeathed the same amount of money to boston as he did to philadelphia. So in all these ways he acknowledged how much boston meant to him. Those gestures i think only begin to reflect how profoundly important that town was to the development as a writer, philosopher, scientist and indeed as a person. A person. Its my contention in this book that the five years Benjamin Franklin sent with his brother james as a printed and especially in the year 1721 when he helped launch the new england current and had a front row seat for the inoculation controversy, were the most formative years of his life. And. In my mind theres no question. I say as i mentioned that everything he needed to know he learned in 1721 and in the book elaborates on why i make that claim. So tonight what i want to do is talk about what happened before that. Franklin was such a long inconsequential life and did so many things that we dont know that much about what the earliest part of his life. Many great great biographies, and i have read most of them but because he had such a long life and did so many things, the the first 15 or 20 years of his life usually get a few pages, i think they deserve more. So i want to talk little bit about how Franklin Brothers james and benjamin got together in the first place, how they struggle to make a go of of it, how they almost did not make a go of it. And how that influenced what would happen in 1721 and ultimately Benjamin Franklins entire life. James and benjamin were the fourth and eighth the children of Josiah Franklin and by the time he married he had married once and had seven children from his first marriage, with this wife he had ten more children. Benjamin franklin Benjamin Franklin was josiahs tenth and youngest son. Because josiah was a very religious man, and he was very much devout is a puritan he hoped to tithe been to the church and making a gift to the church by setting him up to be a minister. In those those days if you wanted to be a congregational minister there is a prescribed route. You went to boston latin as a prep school, and then he went to Harvard College which is many of you, if not all of you started out as a Training Ground specifically for congregational preachers in new england. So even though Josiah Franklin did not have a lot of money, he was a made soap and candles and even as a trade went there was not a very highly esteemed or highly paid job. He decided that somehow or another he was going to send his son to harvard to boston latin and hard harbor to make him a minister. Benjamin franklin started at boston latin as his father wished and he actually did quite well. Scholastically. Was it became clear very quickly that he lacked the calling to be a minister and theres a famous story that you probably heard about that. One winter, one fall when ben and his dad were putting up provisions for the winter they were salting meat and then turned to his father and suggested that they ought to just pray over the barrel of meat once and save themselves having to pray every time they stepped down to eat. Now that is a typical ben franklin kind of logical peace and logic. But it was great for everything but it was not great for someone who was going to be a preacher obviously. So much as i realize that his son did not have the right stuff for the ministry, he saw no reason to incurred huge expenses sending them to school. He pulled her from school when he was ten years old and he put them to work in his shop making silken candles. This was hot, physical work and smelly work because they would boil down animal fats in the process. Ben franklin, who even at this age at ten years old was a strapping, strong kid, he did a lot of swimming. He hated the work. It was mindless work, he was obviously a prodigy, he needed something more challenging for his mind. He told his father early on that he wanted to leave the apprenticeship and wanted to go to see. Apprenticing as a sailor. He wanted to see the world. His father was very upset about that because it was Common Knowledge among everyone that been a sailor was a dangerous occupation. Josiah franklin had already lost a son who is a sailor. His oldest son josiah junior had left home against his wishes and hired onto a ship and have been lost at sea. Probably from a storm maybe by pirates, they never knew. So just iowas determined that Benjamin Franklin would not suffer that fate. He took his son around town, he took a day of a work which was quite a thing to do in those days. He took a stun. He took us down around town trying to find an alternate occupation. For a variety of reasons it cannot work out. So they they are back in the shop, benjamin still miserable, josiah still worried that one day he is going to run off to see. Well, in the midst of all this James Franklin returned from england. James franklin at this point was 20 years old. He had been in england for a number of years apprenticing as a printer. Now he was back in boston, he was good at his tray, he had seen what they were doing in england and how exciting that was. He saw how boring things were in boston and he told his father, i need to start my own print shop and turn the talented on its ear. Josiah said no way. Actually what james needed was the money to do this. Josiah wouldve had to borrow the money in order to give it to james. He said no way because a couple of things. He thought james ought to sort of cool his chats and service time and get to know the business a little better. But mainly it was because he bought, along with everybody else in boston, there were are ready enough printers in the town and the town cannot support another printer in his venture would fail. But james was determined and he kept pushing. Pretty pretty soon josiah found himself with james in one ear begging for the money and benjamin in the other ear begging to do anything but be in the shop and so he kind of capitulated. He told james, james, okay i will get you the money providing you take your brother as your apprentice. What sounded like a good deal but the boys were practically strangers because James Franklin had bee