in. >> a doctorate in journalism working as an advertising agency director when he isn't researching and writing. telling the story of the epidemic to strike boston the lead to scientific changing and scientific advancement called informant live again solidly told in the deeply researched account please join me to welcome the author. [applause] >> i voted absentee and of that makes me a former officials or not but, i would rather be here right now. by the way it is the non-partisan position is a phase you work for the poll worker but it is cool to the register new voters and naturalized citizens it is pretty cool i like a lot all kidding aside. they give for the introduction. thanks to harvard bookstore this is my first time here. but i have heard about this store everybody has an now have been walking around and it smells like of bookstore should smell and how we should look and i am happy and proud to be here. also booktv i have never been on but i have watched in many, many times it is a pleasure to be featured and also to all of you for coming this is my fourth life even the first was in madison wisconsin i got all my friends to go and my wife and her friends. then we went to chicago i got all of my in-laws. she has the very big family see. so again we had people. on sunday i was in connecticut so i am there originally so i have all my friends dating back to high-school but i haven't seen that got to go. tonight i felt think i know any of you so that is very flattering. when my sister lerner would be presenting a book she gave me a vice if it goes over good do it every time you speak. / with like to announce this is my first appearance but it is my first appearance in this area so that is very cool and also my first appearance on booktv so it is wonderful for me. tonight i thought i would start with a very short reading from the introductions of you have not read it you will get an idea of the scope as there are three plot lines. i don't have time to talk about all of them so i would give u.s. sense of what it is about and i will talk about one of the characters that everybody knows to associate with boston and then we should have plenty of time for discussion. >> i will start with the introduction from the book "the fever of 1721". >> 1721 might be the most important year in the evolution of modern medicine and american liberty. with a smallpox epidemic a long position that saved hundreds of lives launched a new medical discipline the eradication of the most deadly disease. the inoculation overtime would be modified to prevent the deaths of untold millions of people and in 1721 it was considered primitive than barbaric and tantamount to a tentative merger -- attempted murder many rank-and-file bostonian suppose it and some of those would be willing to do anything to stop it. smallpox came to boston for the first time in nearly two decades. it arrived aboard a british warship by the time a bird is about one year later approximately half of the town's 11,000 inhabitants had been infected. among those who will skate death for 300 men women and children that under bonded it began with the present -- incision implanted with fluid of someone that had broken now. the idea was to produce an extremely mild and tolerated case of the disease to have unit immunity from future infections. prior the inoculation was and never heard of it came from a theological conservative and is already one of the most controversial members in boston. chiefly and dealing with hysteria six decades earlier generally regarded to superstition and infatuation with the enthusiast ted monitor of europe and beyond to dismiss the proposal out of hand but one doctor accepted the challenge in the 1721 and 42 years old successful as a position in shopowner had achieved a measure of fame for his son, the good track record but was relegated to the second tier of practitioners because he lacked for many colleagues so franklin never would have watched it for nearly four years of struggling boston printer was looking for an opportunity for newspaper modeled on the best publication to be provocative a&m dishes and differ from those already in circulation they would hunker for open is to support his plan into action at if nothing more to reprint the excerpt along with the spectator commentary it would have made a contribution to journalism but it went further he published distinctively american essays and letters depths soon to criticize the religious and political establishment of colonial massachusetts with was scandalized the father's generation "the daily show" of its day in the argument can be made the american social and political satire began and with everything that followed even to himself part is descended from it he was also hoping to invent what was regarded as a first american in san two years after the 12 year-old benjamin franklin was indentured as "the apprentice" for the next three years for the trade that would make him wealthy his inspiration came from this brothers printing house that contained a large library of books and periodicals their conversations about politics and religion in the social issues of the day fired his mind and imagination he began to see the complexity and fold them in 1721 he was given from rose seats to the inoculation and controversy when he learned from that debate and his involvement but in the newspaper changed his life and help to define him as a political philosopher and a diplomat in the sense anything he ever really needed to know he learned in 1721. buyers early 1722 he was ready to take the public stage it is fitting the political movement that made him famous as a patriot was coming of age at the same time he was the man behind the first organized push was a doctor turned politician the son of one of the most beloved politicians had inherited his father's fortune empowers for politics for his 1684 constellation after being elected for the first time he put those to work opposing and obstructing the royal government goes ahead built the first political machine is also become one that accused him of poisoning the minds of his countrymen in order to assert independence of new england. it in 1721 the smallpox epidemic served as the catalyst for american journalism the coming-of-age the beginning of american independence this book is about that epidemic in the story of five remarkable men held their courage and daring evasion and in the time of crisis thank you. so i have five main characters in this book i will concentrate the rest of my time unquestionably the most famous of the characters someone generally associated with philadelphia there remain very much a boston point. he would leave boston in 17 years old and would never return again sometimes you it's a rather tough stains hoffa yet named his daughter virginia so he hoped the french bid would be blessed with 12 more children for one for each of the colony's and one was massachusetts that was even too harsh so he never did return permanently but it is safe to say since wherever he went he kept tabs on boston famously his friend rode with that military occupation in closing the port there were tears in 1784 franklin wrote a letter confessing not only that he longed to see boston again we know he did not return there was not buried their dead did remember the town in his will to have the same amount of money to boston so he knowledge how much it meant to him but that only begins to reflect how importunate was to the development of the writer here is my contention in this book the five years he spent with his brother as an apprentice and especially the year 172120 had a front-row seat to the inoculation controversy was the most formative years of his life no question. i said everything he needed to know he learned in 1721 by elaborate on that. so tonight i want to talk about the for that we don't know about the earliest part of his life but because he has such allies life the first 1520 years think they deserve more so we want to talk about how those franklin brothers got together and struggled to make a go of it and how that would influence what would happen and ultimately in his entire life. james n. benjamin were the fourth set the height of the eight children he had already been married once with seven children from the first marriage and then had 10 more. he was the tenth and youngest and because he was very religious he hope to tie event to the church making the gift to the minister of you wanted to be a congregational minister in good standing and then he went to harvard college to start off as a training ground so even though he did not have a lot of money that was not a highly esteemed dear highly paid job somehow he decided he would send his son to harvard to make to the minister. with benjamin franklin actually did quite well but the problem was the that he lacked the calling and there is a famous story about that one winter his dad was putting the provisions he turned to his bother and said we should just prior for the apparel wants instead of every single time they sit down to eat. that is a typical type of logical piece of logic cannot for a preacher so when he decided there was no point to incur the expense and pulled him from school at 10 years old it was hot quirk bring down the animal fat to process. even at this age was strapping and strong he hated it it was mindless said he told his father he wanted to see the world. his bader was very upset because it was common knowledge that being a sailor was said dangerous occupation the eudora lost a son the oldest had left home against his wishes and was lost taxied either store or pirates so a josiah was determined that he'd not suffer that fate he took today off of work trying to find him an alternate occupation in for a variety of reasons it didn't work out some then there back into the shop and benjamin is still miserable and his father is worried you will run off to see. in the midst of all this tape is franklin is 20 years old and was "the apprentice" in note good at his trade in seeing how exciting that was he told his bader i need to start my own print shop in an josiah's said no way. because he needed the money to do this edges i would have to borrow it he said no way because genes should cool his jets to get to know the business better but mainly he thought there were already enough printers and the town could not support another printer in the venture would fail the james was determined to kept pushing in one year he was begging for the many with benjamin in the other beging to do anything but so he capitulated in told james i will get you the money provided you take your brother or princess. that sounded like a good deal but they were practically strangers as franklin had been away almost all of ben franklin's life and didn't know each other very well but it was the best deal either could get so james franklin in benjamin went into business directly across from the town prison and by the way if he started the old state house and look at a plaque on the building you will see when they have their printing house it is gone but it marks the spot. after two years of dreary work he was in his element surrounded by books and pamphlets and materials and setting type and doing things that were natural but there was more to it his brother was no slouch as a thinker or writer and more important aid dash for other young men like yourself who were tired of the extreme religious oppression nearly every day they ever drop by the printing house to talk politics and philosophy of course, benjamin could not participate but he was soaking it in. but these were his teachers that he did not get when his father pulled him out of school if you read the autobiography franklin talks about his self education he taught himself remedial math and how to be a better writer. but he doesn't say that working for james in that house with books and men that inspired him to start that self education. very soon after joining james and the printing house his spirit was nearly broken and then was back looking for another job it reflects just how bad he felt at that point maybe he was even severely depressed but now he was in his element but business why is not so much they were not so good. to uzziah franklin was right to. and to make matters worse who was a nephew of the most established printer in all of new england to read a dynasty to open a eighth printing house right across the alley. now it was a certain see -- a certainty now any of their business would go to them so left the brothers within a month in a fairly desperate situation. now james found what he had to do was print fabrics for the rich women in town that is not with the team to boston to do also he had to carve is he was deal the person who was artisan enough to carve the woodcuts for illustrations. that should have been a great advantage that they are the only ones to have these customized woodblocks however james had to put these out to his competitors so it was a bad situation when he was not humbled by bad luck in fact, they advertise the fabric printing capabilities and said he printed fabrics without this know that, the intent the lyndon. so things have gotten pretty desperate. and that created more stress. and james was intense and that james was intense it had a lot o drink. benjamin was a strong will brother and many years later was not always the best apprentice but that was thought-provoking. and because of that and theyow got on each other's f nerves weauto go from the autobiography that this was something unfortunately was not very common but it is something we go from ben franklin. so to be on the edge of total failure if they could not get enoughtown of the work he discovered the broadside ballad. . . specifically geared to be a melodramatic recreations if we would do them today we would say there ripped from the headlines in a congressional to the street and sell them for little money for little money makers first you need the event exciting enough and also someone who would be willing to write that for little money in november 17 period 18, james franklin got his event at an island near brewster island then and now the location of boston might. what happened was the lighthouse keeper and his wife and daughter and others were coming back from boston and in a small boat approaching the island and for some reason, it has a nice was a nice day, the sun was out, a little windy, nothing terrible. somehow it overturned and everyone drowned. what made the tragedy even worse is that the family's other daughter was watching the whole thing from the island and in addition to being tragic what made it ironic is people thought they were going to die. they were at the outer reaches of boston harbor on a small rock they survived all kinds of terrible weather and they had all of their sheep, 70 some swept in by the storm. people wouldn't have been shocked if the storm killed them in fact they expected that this was as i say a nice day so there was a sense of irony. when he heard about this he knew he had a subject and needed a poet when he could pay little or even better, nothing. he found one standing right next to him. benjamin franklin and james franklin had an uncle named benjamin was a poet. he knew that his little brother could write something that fast. the question was cut a 12-year-old boy, which is what ben franklin was at this point i might create a drama that would pass through for the work of an adult and so sell lots and lots of copies and get them out of trouble? no wonder the answer to that james was desperate and benjamin was very cause he sent him to work, he wrote based on the newspaper accounts and hearsay in the town. the brothers set precedent and he would've a couple of loaded a couple of these things, pushed him out, literally pushed him out the door and sent him to the street corners to solve this ballot. it was a huge hit. it was a phenomenon. decades later when he wrote his autobiography, he talked about how is a it's sold wonderfully. and i think that is very ben franklin mike. he didn't want to give himself much credit that he heard at the end of his life when he done so many things that he had enormous pride in his first ballot that he had with him when he was 12-years-old so the brothers now have a big windfall to profit and james had finally found what he hoped would be a way of making money he just had to wait for the next event. sure enough in 1719, boston received word that blackbeard, the infamous pilot whose real name was edward had been killed off the coast of what would become north carolina. he was one of the most famous pilots in history and part of it is what he did and part of it is how he looked. but it was set to start below his eyes down to his waist and perfect on the middle with red ribbon. i guess part of the idea is you look crazy so he must be crazy and indeed is pretty fearsome. they had a reason beyond that to be afraid. the reason he was afraid in addition to that is because he had promised to burn boston to the ground because the town had tried, convicted and hanged a fellow pirate. when the bostonians heard that blackbeard was dead, it was a very big news. when they heard about the circumstances of his death, he realized he had enough for a ballot. what happened is the navy had trapped the ship that blackbeard had a bigger ship and firepower so after getting very drunk he went to the ship and started cursing out his would-be captors. he did that for several hours and then he opened fire on them and it wasn't long before he pounded into submission. one ship was destroyed, together disabled. he thought he had won and he approached the ship and boarded. he would have little to no existence because he killed all the sailors on board but he was surprised by an ambush attack from the crew that had been hiding below. an enormous close range battle broke out. the captain shot blackbeard but it didn't kill him. one of the sailors stepped blackbeard in the neck and blackbeard and what could only be described as a line of a johnny depp pirate movie said well done. and if he was flattered with the complement it didn't show because he proceeded to decapitate blackbeard with one swing of the sword. so his head lay flat on his shoulder. the sailors have been through his body into the ocean and put his head on the bow of the ship and sailed back to virginia triumphantly. when james franklin heard this he said this is absolutely what i need. he put him to work writing another ballot and it was called each a pirate. interestingly enough, you would think it would be more successful than the white house -- white house drownings. it was a little too much in boston to bear that it didn't make money and when he walked away from that he kind of cracked the code and he found his niche. if nothing else, the days of printing fabrics and dropping off of his illustration carvings were finally over. but that wasn't to be either. although they were broadly popular and financially successful, they were looked down upon by the bostonians who considered them disreputable, inappropriate. ben franklin's father was one of the biggest critics. he wasn't a wealthy man. he had a very humble trade largely because but largely because of his involvement at the church and his own native intelligence and ability, he had managed to climb socially so she included some of the most powerful man in boston in the circle of friends. the judge samuel was a regular visitor at the home and was arguably one of those and maybe the most esteemed person in all of massachusetts. so he wasn't happy about drowning that would take up getting a pirate and writing about it is something else. he called benjamin who was home and said basically if you continue doing this your life will be with us. since james franklin of his father all the money to pay back in terms of the money to start the business he was obligated to honor his father's wishes so that ended the only real moneymaking scheme james and ben franklin had been able to divide in more than two years in the business. and by the beginning of 1721, the year i sent her on an ibook after a brief stint of printing one of the newspapers which was a regular paid but it didn't last, james and benjamin once again found themselves exactly where they started in 1718. no further along towards the security or even knowing whether they could survive another six months. but they had learned a two important things that when the situation changed, which it was about to do, it would make the difference in terms of their success. james discovered if he could create the right kind of content, he could succeed. benjamin discovered 12-years-old he could write better than most adults. what james really wanted to do all along would start his own newspaper inspired by the innovative publications he had encountered in london but he held off because as i mentioned earlier, the town had to newspapers and because the conventional wisdom was the only thing needed less than another printer was another newspaper. but in april of 1721, smallpox came to boston. it usually came every 12 years and this time it hadn't come after 12 years. it was getting close to 20 years, 18 years. and it would create as i said the first smallpox epidemic of the town had ever seen. two months after it came back to boston, a doctor would conduct his first experiment using his own six-year-old son as one of his first patience. that act in the larger active inoculation would oppose the controversy unlike anything boston had ever seen. and james, being an astute businessman, realized he could exploit this controversy and capitalize on the controversy to start the newspaper he always wanted to start. the paper he would launch in august of 1721 would be the first one published without government approval. in fact it would become the first paper in america or the first document printed in america of any kind that would argue for the right of the press to criticize the government without punishment. that's my new 70 years before the first amendment. the new england currant come of that newspaper, let's change the course of american journalism and also start his little brother on his way to fortune and fame. benjamin who play this point was already a very good and accomplished printer would learn how to be a successful and innovative publisher and a savvy businessman, both of which his brother was. he was received his first and most important lesson in the potential of scientific experimentation thanks to the iraq invasion experiment. he would also learn how to challenge authority and how not to challenge authority again, from his brother. and in the pages of his brother's revolutionary paper, he would read individually express in his own contributions ideas about political freedom but for entirely new to america, in which 50 years in the future would make him in a central figure in the fight for american independence. thank you. [applause] and now if anybody has questions or they would like to talk about any other aspect of the book i would be happy to do it. i think the gentleman from booktv would like us to wait until the microphone comes around. raise your hand please if you do have a question and we will bring the microphone over. does anybody have a question? it have to be deep enough to draw blood. the amount of smallpox that is actually inserted was said to be about the volume of a p.. simply cutting the skin but you susceptible to infection. that was one of the biggest threat's threats off so much that it would kill you but it is the secondary infection that sometimes came from the skin with a dirty knife or a implemented at some kind of. [inaudible] >> the person being inoculated as the one that took the risk. the person of smallpox came from obviously was unfortunately already very sick but what would happen is in some places, for example the reason we know this worked without causing matter believed that it would work is because they worked in the family and they told his master that whenever smallpox came into the village everyone would get these scars and to his credit he asked him to explain and what happened as he explained the procedure that turned out and he subsequently read about it in a scholarly journal and he was convinced it would work. i think it is a well researched book and i've been enjoying it for a couple of days. talking about writing it where did you find all this information and how long have you been thinking about it and how to do spark your interest? >> this started literally with a calendar page back in the 19 '90s i got a desk calendar and one of the pages talked about the first use against smallpox and mentioned they had given him the idea and that it was very controversial and that was literally all i knew. i knew as i described him as a bad guy. i'd never heard of this so at that point i thought i wanted to write a screenplay and i did a little research and i did write based on the story and i was very zoned in on the medical part of the story. but as i started doing more research you start to get deeper and deeper into the story i realized in addition to being an incredible medical history story it was also about political history and journalistic history and what made benjamin franklin benjamin franklin and i won't give you all the details but years passed and i didn't do anything in the screenplay and a friend of mine suggested when i told him about the idea is that you need to write that as a book it's too big of an idea. so i decided to start researching in earnest enough to do the whole book and that took seven years to research, write, rewrite and publish it. i left out stuff i needed to leave out which was a lot of back story. if you do all that research that's a lot of autobiographical stuff. i had all this information and i think i wanted to dump it all in and what ended up happening is there's a little bit of back story that i trimmed away everything but the information leading to 1721 and what came out of it in the implications of. >> i didn't know about the broadside ballad and he did it as you say because he knew. did he ever expect not being able to identify this person that maybe it but maybe it might have been his brother cracks >> he should have. we knew that and it seemed so obvious. if you read with a sort of backwards knowledge of hindsight if you were, you can see different places where ben franklin peeks out. but he didn't know and i think it's because there was such a a strong -- if us for an apprentice to do anything without permission from his master. it was such a breach of the protocol that i think he never thought benjamin would do it. if he put him to work on something that's because he was the master and he was the apprentice. when he found out he was very angry and he at least alludes to that in the autobiography that i agree it's one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight but it's a combination of not believing that he would do that and even james underestimated him. he didn't want to see how brilliant his brother was in soviet and. i've referred to him as the founding grandfather and a figure most people don't know about about but he's the man that started the boston caucus, first political machine in 171-93-1721. he had grown up wealthy but his father have always resented when he canceled the first charter which had given so much power and they have a kind of hands-off approach when that went away and was replaced by the new charter which took away a lot of the autonomy, the father was outraged and i think really he was estranged from england in the past that on to his son. although she would have told you he was a subject of the the subject of the crown he didn't feel like a subject and didn't talk like a subject of the crown. he spent the rest of his life on that cause you dedicated the rest of his life to making things visible. he was the enemy number one and the organization that he created gave birth in the future to the other caucuses and a lot of the mechanisms by which the revolution was started pretty much. you may or may not know from the book at this point that sam adams who we call the fire brand of the american revolution had been tied to elisha cook. he had deputies in the 1730s and 40s and one of them was samuel adams senior otherwise known as that the m.. they would meet at the house and sam adams junior outfielder would be there and he would hear his father and elisha cook discussing political philosophy, strategy is to compound the british and that's where he got his politics. >> he comes across as a remarkable parliamentarian commander certainly sam adams was remarkable, too. >> elisha cook although he was rich as i mentioned, he went out of his way to kind of a fact the look and behavior of the common man. he built up this power and owned a lot of taverns and he would build political power by getting people who were eligible to vote but never voted to become engaged in the system. to do this even though he was wealthy and harvard educated, even though he had that upbringing he kind of made himself a man of the people and in terms of how he addressed and how he looked and acted, sam adams did the same thing. anybody else clacks >> you're talking about opening up the current and it started out as being a muckraker and puts me in the mind of samuel adams defending a publisher for slander. and it became the basis of the first amendment, freedom of the press and i guess i could research that. i don't know what the paper was that he defended. >> it was defined by the late 1720s. boston ultimately got the best of james franklin and ended up being ostracized and kicked out of town and moved to newport to survey printing town but they are connections. i talking about about the trial there was a connection to these guys and i'm going to forget the names now. i don't remember the lawyer but he had a connection with. the whole trial happened before that. but it definitely created a precedence and when he was tried, there was already kind of a mood in america against or for that could criticize the government also is a legal and i think what happened with james franklin and benjamin franklin would talk about the free press in his newspaper and if it did have an influence on everything that followed. thank you very much. ' >> thank you all for coming out and booktv for being here. we will have a signing at the table if you could line up the books are for sale at the counter. thank you all. >> the book is about finding out even if you are experts at preferences and is to be a fair non- prejudiced person, your bias trumps the presence. your input of what is stored in your social knowledge will do more to inform and direct your conduct than your preferences. why is this important? is important in healthcare because health disparities is killing people of color daily. it's causing people to live sicker and die quicker because of the color of their skin. if i were so inclined i could spend the rest of the evening running the data on just the fact. the institute of medicine published an important work called unequal treatment and cataloged 25 years of data into the fact that infant mortality in the population is twice of that, the fact that you are 75% more likely to die if you are diagnosed with coronary artery disease if you are a person of color than if then if you are white and these are the kind of data and statistics that will be replicated no matter what the cause of disease is. it's true for stroke and diabetes and i will cause debate cause of cancer. with respect to cancer, white and blacks diagnosed at the same time have a 33% difference in their survivability rate. this isn't true, however, if they receive similarly intensive treatment, education, screening. if these are eliminated the difference in survival rates disappears. the fact that is true is unattainable. that is my first. morally unattainable in the united states in my view. it's medically because the medical profession not only agrees to first do no harm but if you read closely it talks about justice and being a provider and a traitor of an entire patient, a whole patient in context. when that is not the case, then the implicit biases change the way people are treated. >> you can watch this and other programs online if booktv.org. the ranking is based off of the sales data for magazines and newspapers on the eu reader and in print. seattle washington tops off the list this year and is the home of the corporate headquarters. the city of portland oregon comes in second followed by the nation's capital interface. san francisco and austin texas round out the top-five most well read top five most well read cities according to amazon. the list goes on with las vegas, tucson, denver, albuquerque new mexico and san diego. baltimore maryland is an event on the list making it the second