Notes

Most of the quotes by Benjamin Franklin come from three sources: Yale University’s The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (forty-three volumes), Norton’s edition of Franklin’s Autobiography, and the Library of America’s two-volume collection of his writing. In the interest of brevity, I have not included endnotes for Franklin quotes that come from these sources but have done so for those that come from elsewhere. I have also attributed quotes from Franklin’s many interlocutors. Much of this correspondence appears in the Papers.

INTRODUCTION: ALIEN BEN

  1. one UFO encounter in particular: Adam Reilly, “Western Mass. Debates a UFO Monument—and How to Commemorate the Inexplicable,” WGBH, June 14, 2018.
  2. “Our Founders, Alien Obsessed”: Matthew Stewart, “Our Founders, Alien-Obsessed: Adams and Franklin Had a Thing—Really!—for Extraterrestrials,” Salon, July 4, 2015. See also “Aliens in New England? A Timeline of UFO Sightings and Unusual Encounters,” New England.com, April 15, 2022.
  3. “Fleshly, worldly, fluid”: Betsy Erkkila, “Franklin and the Revolutionary Body,” ELH 67, no. 3 (2000), 717–741.
  4. He signed all four documents: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris Establishing Peace with Great Britain (1783), and the US Constitution (1787).
  5. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals: Most historians credit Benjamin Franklin with inventing bifocals, but a few believe others may have preceded him in the invention. For an overview, see Charles Letocha, “The Invention and Early Manufacture of Bifocals,” Survey of Ophthalmology 35, no. 3 (1990), 226–235.
  6. “the perfect model of sanity”: Ormond Seavey, Becoming Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and the Life (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1990), 99.
  7. “To forget our mistakes is bad”: Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future (New York: Vintage, 1999), 6.

ONE: RESTING BEN

  1. recorded by Polly Stevenson: Her married name was Mary Hewson, but Franklin, like other close friends, called her “Polly” and still thought of her as a “Stevenson.”
  2. “No repining, no peevish”: Polly Stevenson (married name: Mary Hewson), cited in John Bigelow, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Knickerbocker Press), 12:197.
  3. a lethal electrical charge and a turkey: The turkey, alas, did not survive the encounter.
  4. “A short, fat, trunched”: The visitor was Manasseh Cutler, cited in Harold Bloom, ed., Benjamin Franklin (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008), 17.
  5. “A calm lethargic state succeeded”: Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds. Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 122.
  6. “he quietly expired”: Ibid., 122.
  7. the greatest happiness of the greatest number: The formulation is the brainchild of the philosopher (and Franklin contemporary) Jeremy Bentham.
  8. David Eagleman calls a “possibilian”: Eagleman first used the term in an NPR interview. Talk of the Nation, February 17, 2009.

TWO: BABY BEN

  1. born on January 17, 1706: At the time, Franklin’s birthday was recorded on January 6, but in 1752 England and its colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, causing Franklin’s birthday to shift to January 17.
  2. a neighbor had sketched the house: William Thackara, on a visit to Boston, converted the pencil sketch into a drawing.
  3. a sturdy green-steepled: This rendition of the Old South Meeting Hall was built in 1729. The original, where Franklin was baptized, was made of cedar wood.
  4. “the blame and shame of it”: The judge was Samuel Sewall. Quoted in Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, Benjamin Franklin: The Shaping of Genius: The Boston Years (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 6.
  5. “to the service of the church”: Ibid., 145.
  6. “Private virtue assured a public role”: Ormond Seavey, Becoming Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and the Life (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1990), 105.
  7. “Seest thou a man diligent”: Joyce Chaplin, ed., Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (New York: Norton, 2012), 76.
  8. stand before four kings: Franklin stood before Kings George II and George III of England, and Louis XV and Louis XVI of France. He dined with Denmark’s King Christian VII.
  9. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin: Whitney was born in colonial America. By the time he invented the cotton gin, in 1794, the colonies (now states) had gained their independence.
  10. “The morals of our people”: John Adams, The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1961), 2:150, 27.
  11. And a surprising number chose to join: Seavey, Becoming Benjamin Franklin, 115.
  12. “[Bostonians] dressed as elegantly”: Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia Herbert, The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family (New York: Norton, 1975), 7.
  13. Near the Franklin house: When Benjamin was six years old, the Franklins moved to a much larger house, about five blocks north.
  14. “I think father if you said grace”: Paul M. Zall, ed., Ben Franklin Laughing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 98.
  15. “the quackery of literature”: As recalled by Benjamin Rush in Harold Bloom, ed., Benjamin Franklin (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008), 17.

THREE: BOOKISH BEN

  1. “Be not fools”: Cotton Mather, Essays to Do Good (New York: Kindle, 2012), 462.
  2. “What description of men”: Paul M. Zall, ed., Ben Franklin Laughing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 131.
  3. “Books are useful”: Daniel Defoe, An Essay upon Projects (New York: AMS Press, 1999), 12.
  4. “slough of despond”: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (London: Penguin Classics, 2008), 17.
  5. “the virtues of these great men”: Plutarch’s Lives, translated by John Dryden (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 325.
  6. “change and shift”: Ibid., 201.
  7. He once ran an ad: “The Person that borrow’d B. Franklin’s Law-Book of this Province, is hereby desired to return it, he having forgot to whom he lent it,” Pennsylvania Gazette, July 24, 1735.
  8. not the town’s medical establishment: There was one exception among the doctors. Zabdiel Boylston enthusiastically embraced the new inoculation. See Eric Weiner, “How 18th Century Boston Countered Vaccine Hesitancy,” Medium, September 20, 2021.
  9. “No religion has ever been”: Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, Benjamin Franklin: The Shaping of Genius: The Boston Years (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 188.
  10. “He is unworthy”: Mather, Essays to Do Good, 64.
  11. “It is an invaluable honor”: Ibid., 96.
  12. “a workless faith”: Ibid., 282.
  13. “Perhaps thou art one”: Ibid., 208.
  14. “Let this be a caution to you”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 20:286.

FOUR: EMPIRICAL BEN

  1. “The past is a foreign”: Leslie Hartley, The Go-Between (New York: New York Review Books, 1953), 17.
  2. The Romans had an expression: Stanley Finger, Doctor Franklin’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 44.
  3. “But what, sir”: The anecdote, relayed by Franklin’s friend André Morellet, is cited in Paul M. Zall, ed., Ben Franklin Laughing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 101.
  4. “I pushed the edges of these forward”: In a letter to Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, cited in Sarah Pomeroy, Benjamin Franklin, Swimmer: An Illustrated History (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Press, 2021), 6.
  5. “I was drawn along the surface”: Ibid., 8.

FIVE: MASKED BEN

  1. “There is much difference”: Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 62.
  2. “expose the vices and follies”: New England Courant, August 7, 1721.
  3. “a notorious, scandalous paper”: J. A. Leo Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 1:111.
  4. “a play upon possibility”: Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage International), 54.
  5. “look where they pleased”: Quoted in Jennifer Van Horn, The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 251.
  6. “androgynous imagination”: John Updike, “Many Bens,” New Yorker, February 22, 1988.
  7. “Here’s the king of Prussia”: James Sappenfield, A Sweet Instruction: Franklin’s Journalism as a Literary Apprenticeship (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973), 20:436.
  8. “it relieved readers”: Ibid., 16–17.
  9. “never at a loss for something to say”: Cited in ibid., 15.
  10. “Who can do more than guess”: Edmund Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 146.
  11. “cult of authenticity”: Theodor Adorno, The Jargon of Authenticity (London: Routledge Classics, 2003), 3.
  12. “genuine fake”: Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (New York: Vintage, 1989), 53.

SIX: GROUNDED BEN

  1. “the wisest man among us”: Pauline Maier, “Boston and New York in the 18th Century,” American Antiquarian Society, October 21, 1981, https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44517672.pdf.
  2. “They became homesick”: David Anderson, “The Soldiers Who Died of Homesickness,” Conversation, September 30, 2016, https://theconversation.com/the-soldiers-who-died-of-homesickness-65910.
  3. “The idea that you might”: Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 2012), 430.
  4. “the pineal gland”: In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, February 3, 1814, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0140.
  5. “The air proveth sweet”: Cited in Andrew Murphy, William Penn: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 159.
  6. 150 enslaved Africans: The first White protests against slavery occurred four years later, in 1688, led by four German immigrants.
  7. By 1700, one Philadelphian in ten: The rate of enslavement remained more or less constant for much of the eighteenth century. Historian Gary Nash estimates that on the eve of the American Revolution, one in twelve Philadelphians was enslaved and about one out of five households enslaved someone. See Gary Nash, “Franklin and Slavery,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 4 (2006), 618–635.
  8. “would be astonished”: Russell Weigley, ed., Philadelphia: A 300-Year History (New York: Norton, 1982), 14.
  9. “I was shaved by”: Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton (New York: Alejandro’s Libros, 2012), 623.
  10. “We are a people, thrown together”: William Smith, cited in Carl Bridenbaugh and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of Franklin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 16.
  11. One visitor said an hour: The visitor was William Black, cited in Alan Houston, Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 75.
  12. “Filthy-dirty”: Billy Smith, “Benjamin Franklin, Civic Improver,” in Page Talbott, ed., Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 98.
  13. There, Mungo led a happy life: Writing to Georgiana, Franklin lamented the passing of Mungo, exceptional for his species. “Few squirrels were better accomplish’d; for he had had a good education, had travell’d far, and seen much of the world.”

SEVEN: WANDERING BEN

  1. logging 42,000 miles: Percy Adams, “Benjamin Franklin and the Travel Writing Tradition” in J. A. Leo Lemay, ed., The Oldest Revolutionary: Essays on Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), 34.
  2. “Old Conjurer”: Adams, The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1961), 369.
  3. Ben wondered why: Karma soon caught up with Governor Keith. Hounded by his creditors, he sailed from America to England. He spent time in a debtors’ prison and died in the Old Bailey jail in 1749.
  4. “a great and monstrous thing”: Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 135.

EIGHT: RESILIENT BEN

  1. “gnats’ blood, Inuit sun visors”: Kathryn Hughes, “Hans Sloane’s ‘Nicknackatory’ and the Founding of the British Museum,” Guardian, June 16, 2017.
  2. the moxie to meet bigwigs: Franklin almost met his hero, Isaac Newton, but it was not to be.
  3. “like skeletons of buildings”: William Stow, cited in White, A Great and Monstrous Thing: London in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 7.
  4. “a very proper name for it”: White, A Great and Monstrous Thing, 6.
  5. “the bitter black drink called coffee”: Samuel Pepys, quoted in Anthony Clayton, The Coffee Houses of London: A Stimulating Story (London: Historical Publications, 2003), 7.
  6. “[Americans] are a race of convicts”: James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (London: Penguin Classics, 2008), 430.
  7. “Where Benjamin Franklin Learned His Trade”: That is not quite accurate. He learned the printing trade in Boston and Philadelphia. He refined it in London.
  8. with brown eyes: While the historic consensus, based mostly on reports from portrait painters, is that Franklin’s eyes were brown, a few contemporaries described them as hazel or even gray. Nothing is straightforward when it comes to Benjamin Franklin.
  9. A wealthy nobleman: Sir William Wyndham, a former chancellor of the exchequer.

NINE: HOMEWARD BEN

  1. “the beauty of sudden seeing”: Robert Grudin, The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990), 65.
  2. Who can resist: Franklin was seduced by speed. As a teenager fleeing Puritan Boston, the ship couldn’t sail fast enough. Later, he dreamed up ways to expedite ocean crossings, and, as deputy postmaster, accelerated colonial mail service.
  3. “Thus being esteem’d”: Franklin also advised a young tradesman, “The sound of your hammer at five in the morning or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer.” Franklin, Papers, 37:304.
  4. “Old buildings are like”: Cited in Thompson Mayes, Why Old Places Matter (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 7.
  5. “he found it more pleasant”: Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York: Viking, 1938), 292.
  6. “Perhaps if we could examine”: A French friend, Pierre Cabanis, said Franklin possessed “a politeness of the heart.” Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 166.
  7. “There is no real advance in human reason”: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2013), 369.
  8. “Truth is what works”: William James, “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Lecture II” (Project Gutenberg, 2004), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5116/5116-h/5116-h.htm.

TEN: FLUID BEN

  1. “I have seen your epitaph”: Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 5:475.

ELEVEN: SOCIAL BEN

  1. “was always a feast to me”: Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 24.
  2. “Whenever one found him”: Ibid., 165.
  3. every Friday evening: Perhaps out of a need for more privacy (or less ale), the Junto later moved to the house of one of its members, Robert Crace.
  4. “Hath anybody”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 1:255.
  5. He was planting: Those seeds continue to flower to this day. Several dozen “Ben Franklin Circles” are active throughout the United States. See Andrew Marantz, “Benjamin Franklin Invented the Chat Room,” New Yorker, April 2, 2018.

TWELVE: HABITUAL BEN

  1. “perseverance, kindness, gratitude, courage and honesty”: Pelin Kesebir and Selin Kesebir, “The Cultural Salience of Moral Character and Virtue Declined in Twentieth Century America,” Journal of Positive Psychology 7 (2012), 471–480.
  2. his own list of Thirteen Virtues: Joyce Chaplin, ed., Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (New York: Norton, 2012), 79–80.
  3. “overbearing and rather insolent”: Ibid., 87.

THIRTEEN: TEXTUAL BEN

  1. He invented words, too: For a comprehensive list of words invented by Franklin, see David Yerkes, “Franklin’s Vocabulary,” in J. A. Leo Lemay, ed., Reappraising Benjamin Franklin (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993), 396–411.
  2. Franklin has just opened: Franklin partnered with his friend Hugh Meredith, whose family helped bankroll the two.
  3. It was, like Franklin himself: Said his French friend André Morellet: “While founding an empire, he can be seen drinking and laughing; serious and playful, such is our Benjamin.” Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 151.
  4. “the highest happiness”: Cited in Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, 65.
  5. the Bible and Poor Richard’s Almanack: Franklin regularly sold 10,000 copies of Poor Richard’s Almanack. At the time, the population of Pennsylvania was only 15,000.
  6. most borrowed and revised: Franklin biographer Leo Lemay estimates only 10 percent of the proverbs that appear in Poor Richard are original.

FOURTEEN: CURIOUS BEN

  1. “Evil stalks the land”: Voltaire, “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster,” in Toleration and Other Essays by Voltaire, translated by Joseph McCabe (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1912), 86.
  2. collide with Isabel Miller: That is not her real name. In a Franklinian gesture, she asked that I use a pseudonym.
  3. There is no evidence Franklin was ever unfaithful: Historian Edmund Morgan sums up the state of knowledge on this aspect of Franklin’s life. “We will never know whether he remained sexually faithful during his long absences.” Edmund Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 45.
  4. Many of the era’s greatest: Notes historian Ritchie Robertson: “Anyone who chose to exercise his brain and powers of observation could learn something new about almost any subject, and countless important contributions to science were made by amateurs without special training.” Robertson, The Enlightenment, 5.
  5. “a strikingly useless commodity”: James Delbourgo, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 148.
  6. “Genius, in truth”: William James, Principles of Psychology (New York: Dover, 1950), 2:110.
  7. “I’ve found out so much”: Cited in J. A. Leo Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 3:65.
  8. “To know was to feel”: Delbourgo, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders, 9.
  9. “that great artillery of God Almighty”: William Temple, cited in Ritchie Robertson, The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (New York: HarperCollins, 2021), 14–15.
  10. “William raised the kite”: Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, 3:105.
  11. Franklin’s kite experiment: Franklin thought he was the first to prove that lightning was electricity, but unbeknownst to him a French scientist had done so several months earlier, conducting an experiment designed by Franklin.
  12. “What good is a newborn baby?”: Franklin’s comment, spoken in French, was recorded by Baron Frédéric-Melchior von Grimm. See Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 40:544–547.
  13. “If it hadn’t been for that Franklin the whole house would have gone”: As recalled by Isaac Jefferson, an enslaved person at Monticello. Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 151.
  14. “snatched the lightning from”: Cited in Carla Mulford, Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 289.
  15. “is universally believed”: John Adams, diary entry June 3, 1779, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
  16. “ ’til at length they entirely left me”: Cited in Stanley Finger, Dr. Franklin’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 106.

FIFTEEN: FUNNY BEN

  1. “Dialogue between the Gout and Mr. Franklin”: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings (New York: Library of America, 1987), 203–210.
  2. “He that is conscious of a stink”: Cited in Jill Lepore, “What Poor Richard Cost Benjamin Franklin,” New Yorker, January 20, 2008.
  3. “fetid smell”: Cited in Carl Japikse, Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School (Berkeley, CA: Frog Books, 1990), 15.
  4. “shall render the natural discharges”: Ibid.
  5. “left to slaves and hired aliens”: Cited in John Morreall, “Philosophy of Humor,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2023), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/humor/.
  6. “Most people enjoy”: Ibid.
  7. “a great share of inoffensive”: Stephen Sayre, cited in Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), xiii.
  8. “had wit at will”: John Adams, “From John Adams to Boston Patriot, November 8, 1810,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5574.

SIXTEEN: BUDDHA BEN

  1. “May I be the doctor”: Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1979), 20.
  2. an obscure academic paper: Ryan Aponte, “Dharma of the Founders: Buddhism within the Philosophies of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Elihu Palmer,” master’s thesis (Georgetown University, 2012).
  3. “a beneficial intention”: Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, 4.
  4. One day, a Quaker man: The anecdote is relayed by Franklin’s friend Abbé Lefebvre de la Roche and cited in Paul M. Zall, ed., Ben Franklin Laughing: Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Benjamin Franklin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 111.
  5. “Frequently there is more danger”: Quoted in Stanley Finger, Doctor Franklin’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 4.
  6. “the religion of the heart”: Polly Stevenson, under her married name, Mary Hewson, quoted in Jared Sparks, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1850), 532.
  7. admitted its first patient: The hospital opened at the home of Philadelphia resident John Kinsey. Several years later, the dedicated building was completed.
  8. Consider a classic Buddhist parable: The Lotus Sutras, translated by Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 61.
  9. “flexibility, compromise, negotiation”: Alan Houston, Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 69.

SEVENTEEN: NAKED BEN

  1. “injurious to the interests of the Crown”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 7:106.
  2. “the most cautious man”: The visitor was Thomas Coombe. Quoted in Julie Flavell, When London Was Capital of America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 223.
  3. “cold and reserved”: Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 53.
  4. “putrid atmospheres”: Stanley Finger, Doctor Franklin’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 172.
  5. In one of the more amusing episodes: Adams recalls the episode in a diary entry on September 9, 1776. John Adams Autobiography, Vol. 1, Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
  6. When workers were excavating: Colin Schultz, “Why Was Benjamin Franklin’s Basement Filled with Skeletons?” Smithsonian, October 3, 2013.

EIGHTEEN: ANGRY BEN

  1. more than 15,000 letters: Claire Rydell Arcenas and Caroline Winterer, “The Correspondence Network of Benjamin Franklin: the London Decades,” Stanford University Online Project, http://republicofletters.stanford.edu/publications/franklin/.
  2. “I trust too sir”: Franklin, Papers, 26:220.
  3. “The best revenge”: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated by Diskin Clay (London: Penguin Classics, 2006), 66.
  4. “music of angels”: Cited in Stanley Finger and William Zeitler, “Benjamin Franklin and his glass armonica: from music as therapeutic to pathological,” Progress in Brain Research 216 (2015), 93–125.
  5. “perpetual anarchy and disobedience”: Franklin, Papers, 20:570.
  6. “an abridgement of what are called English liberties”: In a letter from Thomas Hutchinson dated January 20, 1769. Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0282-0007.
  7. “invited as to a bull-baiting”: Franklin, Papers, 21:112.
  8. “has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men”: Franklin, Papers, 21:37.
  9. “conspicuously erect”: Edward Bancroft, cited in Michael Warner, “Franklin and the Letters of the Republic,” Representations 16 (1986), 110–130.
  10. “I will make your master”: Franklin’s supposed threat was reported nearly a decade after the Cockpit hearing in a London magazine. Most historians do not give it much credibility. Cited in Paul M. Zall, Ben Franklin Laughing: Anecdotes from Original Sources by and About Benjamin Franklin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 77.

NINETEEN: REFLECTIVE BEN

  1. “His temper is grown so very reserved”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 18:65.
  2. “Hearing him preach”: Quoted in Peter Hoffer, When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield: Enlightenment, Revival and the Power of the Printed Word (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2011), 16.
  3. “He speaks of himself”: Cited in Ormond Seavey, Becoming Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and the Life (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1990), 39.
  4. “A mighty maze”: Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man Epistle 1,” The Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epistle-i.
  5. He never smoked: Franklin shared his views on tobacco with Benjamin Rush. See Harold Bloom, Benjamin Franklin (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008), 14.
  6. “one might have suppos’d a transmigration”: Joyce Chaplin, ed., Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (New York: Norton, 2012), 11.
  7. “humans are history-bearing”: Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, “Pastlessness,” Hedgehog Review (Summer 2022), https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-use-and-abuse-of-history/articles/pastlessness.
  8. “a cerebral disease”: Constantine Sedikides et al., “Nostalgia: Conceptual Issues and Existential Functions,” in Jeff Greenberg, ed. Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology (New York: Guilford Press, 2004), 201.
  9. “What makes old age hard”: Somerset Maugham, Points of View (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 70.
  10. a groundbreaking 1963: Robert Butler, “The Life Review: An Interpretation of Reminiscence in the Aged,” Psychiatry 26, no. 1 (1963), 65–76.
  11. “My life is in the background”: Ibid.
  12. found the secret ingredient: Bin Li, Qin Zhu, and Rubo Cui, “Can Good Memories of the Past Instill Happiness? Nostalgia Improves Subjective Well-Being by Increasing Gratitude,” Journal of Happiness Studies 24 (2023), 699–715.

TWENTY: DECISIVE BEN

  1. Endings carry greater weight: Donald Redelmeier, Joel Katz, and Daniel Kahneman, “Memories of Colonoscopy: A Randomized Trial,” Pain 104, no. 1 (2003), 187–194.
  2. fifteen-year mission: Ben actually spent seventeen years in London, from 1757 to 1774, but his stay was interrupted by an eighteen-month visit to Philadelphia in 1763 and 1764.
  3. “go from one end of America”: Franklin relayed the comments to his friend William Strahan in a letter dated August 19, 1785.
  4. Only one example of Ben’s moral algebra: Franklin, Papers, 20:336. Franklin also referred to this practice as “prudential algebra.”
  5. “These are bad symptoms in advanced life”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 16:152.
  6. “my poor old mother”: Ibid., 21:42.
  7. “I heartily wish you had”: Ibid.
  8. “the tears literally running”: Hayes and Bour, Franklin in His Own Time, 43.

TWENTY-ONE: BUSY BEN

  1. busy people are happier: Marissa A. Sharif, “How Having Too Little or Too Much Time Is Linked to Lower Subjective Well-Being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 121, no. 4 (2021), 933–947.
  2. a more modern example: Richard Larson, “Perspectives on Queues: Social Justice and the Psychology of Queueing,” Operations Research 35, no. 6 (1987), 895–905.
  3. “The great affair”: Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1879), 81.
  4. “a suspicious person”: Thomas Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 237.
  5. “a disposition entirely American”: Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 53.
  6. “ended in shouting matches”: Gordon Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Penguin, 2004), 162.
  7. “in the evening of life”: William Strahan in a 1775 letter to Franklin. See Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 20:220.
  8. “the Golden Age of Gout”: W. S. C. Copeman, A Short History of the Gout (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 80.
  9. “When I was a young man”: Cited in Stanley Finger, Doctor Franklin’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 287.
  10. “I do not repine at my malady”: Carl Van Doren, ed., Letters of Benjamin Franklin and Jane Mecom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 340.
  11. Some people maintain: Clay Routledge et al., “Nostalgia as a Resource for Psychological Health and Well-Being,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 7, no. 11 (2013), 808–818.
  12. even in the face of adversity: Gerben J. Westerhof and Syl Slatman, “In Search of the Best Evidence for Life Review Therapy to Reduce Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 26, no. 4 (2019), 26 e12301.
  13. “two or three unlucky expressions”: J. Jefferson Looney, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 13:464.
  14. “John Thompson, Hatter”: Hayes and Bour, Franklin in His Own Time, 136.
  15. “We hold these truths to be sacred”: P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 1:243.
  16. An assertive pen stroke: Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin, 552.
  17. “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be”: John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 2014), 27.
  18. “discovered himself to be an enemy”: Larry R. Gerlach, ed., “New Jersey in the American Revolution, 1763–1783: A Documentary History” (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975), 210.
  19. “I suffer so much”: Cited in Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Society, 1918), 3:47.
  20. “If I have said, or done anything”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 22:551.
  21. “each one of us took”: Cited in Henri Doniol, Histoire de la Participation de la France à l’Etablissement des États-Unis d’Amerique (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1886), 1:267.
  22. “Everyone here is a soldier”: Ibid.
  23. “keep totally secret where you are bound”: David Schoenbrun, Triumph in Paris: The Exploits of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Harper, 1976), 50.
  24. “Don’t go, pray don’t”: Franklin, Papers, 22:104.

TWENTY-TWO: FULL BEN

  1. a wretched place: William Bell Clark, Lambert Wickes, Sea Raider and Diplomat: The Story of a Naval Captain of the Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), 100.
  2. “with that senile ambition”: Harold Bloom, ed., Benjamin Franklin (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008), 19.
  3. “Some think we are of a French extract”: Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 2:229.
  4. “a wicked old man”: Cited in Thomas Fleming, “Franklin Charms Paris,” American Heritage (Spring 2010).
  5. “There is no shred of evidence”: Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia Herbert, The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family (New York: Norton, 1975), 278.
  6. “He had an instinctive knowledge”: Lorraine Smith Pangle, The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 69.
  7. “projectors, speculators, and adventurers of all descriptions”: William Temple Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London: Henry Colburn, 1818), 1:329.
  8. he negotiated two treaties: The Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance, both signed in February 1778.
  9. “without noticing that he understood little”: Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 127.
  10. “Men at forty/Learn to close softly”: Donald Justice, “Men at Forty,” Poetry 108, no. 2 (May 1966).
  11. He looks like a man: The painting is currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where I sought it out. It is even more striking in person.
  12. “come to have the honour to see the great Franklin”: John Adams, John Adams Autobiography, 2:26. Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
  13. “once a handsome woman”: Hayes and Bour, Franklin in His Own Time, 69.
  14. “it may truly be said”: Hayes and Bour, Franklin in His Own Time, 134.
  15. “had the common sense not to annoy”: Jonathan Dull, Franklin the Diplomat: The French Mission (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Press, 1982), 9.
  16. recent studies confirm: Yu Niiya, “Does a Favor Request Increase Liking toward the Requester?,” Journal of Social Psychology 156, no. 2 (2016), 211–221.
  17. “was amazed to find so much genius”: Hayes and Bour, Franklin in His Own Time, 130.
  18. Most (not all) cells: The life span of individual cells varies widely. Those found in your colon, for instance, are replaced every few days, while muscle and fat cells may take seventy years to regenerate. Some cells, such as those found in the brain and eyes, remain unchanged throughout your life.
  19. “My grandfather mounted his litter”: Cited in Lopez and Herbert, The Private Franklin, 281.
  20. “I picture you in the litter”: Ibid., 282.

TWENTY-THREE: FLOATING BEN

  1. “The Art of Procuring”: The essay was contained in a letter Franklin sent to a friend, Catherine Shipley, who was suffering from insomnia. Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), May 2, 1786.
  2. “Dear and Honoured Father”: Letter from William Franklin to Benjamin Franklin, July 22, 1784.

TWENTY-FOUR: DOUBTING BEN

  1. “The joy I received”: Cited in Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia Herbert, The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family (New York: Norton, 1975), 287.
  2. “It has always been my maxim”: Franklin reportedly made the comment to Thomas Paine during a visit to Paris. Cited in John Epps, The Life of John Walker, MD (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1832), 145.
  3. “this Venerable Nestor”: The phrase was scientist Andrew Ellicott’s, cited in Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour, eds., Franklin in His Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011), 99.
  4. “He was determined not to increase”: Ibid., 100.
  5. “the brightness of his memory”: Harold Bloom, Benjamin Franklin (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008), 19.
  6. “an activity of mind equal to”: Cited in Bernard Cohen, Science and the Founding Fathers (New York: Norton, 1995), 189.
  7. “They listened to his suggestions”: Hastings Lyon, The Constitution and the Men Who Made It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936), 73.
  8. “They that govern most”: John Selden, The Table Talk of John Selden (London: John Russell Smith, 1856), 120.
  9. “looks out upon the noisy passersby”: Franklin’s observation is recalled by an acquaintance, the historian Constantine Volney. Cited in Zall, Ben Franklin Laughing, 142.
  10. “with great pertinacity and effect”: Cited in William Carr, The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the Constitutional Convention (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 56.
  11. “When a broad table”: Franklin’s comment was recalled by James Madison. See Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/farrand-the-records-of-the-federal-convention-of-1787-vol-1.
  12. “manipulative, hands-on approach”: Donald Meyer, in Melvin Buxbaum, ed., Critical Essays on Benjamin Franklin (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987), 164.
  13. “necessary uneasiness”: John William Ward, “Who Was Benjamin Franklin,” American Scholar 32, no. 4 (Autumn 1963), 563.
  14. “Well, Doctor, what have we got”: The alleged exchange was relayed by James McHenry, a delegate from Maryland. “Papers of Dr. James McHenry on the Federal Convention of 1787,” American Historical Review 11, no. 3 (1906), 595–624.

TWENTY-FIVE: BELATED BEN

  1. Franklin enslaved at least seven: Details about Franklin’s enslavement are difficult to pin down. Explains historian Gary Nash: “Like most other northern slaveowners, [Franklin] did not keep a record of slave births, deaths, and marriages because slaveholding was not central to productive processes as it was in the plantation South.” Nash, “Franklin and Slavery,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 619.
  2. Jefferson enslaved more than: Henry Wiencek, “The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson,” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2012.
  3. “The man who is so good at making an excuse”: Cited in Anonymous, Liber Facetiarum: Being a Collection of Curious and Interesting Anecdotes (Newcastle upon Tyne: Dr. Akenhead and Sons, 1809), 182.
  4. “Two likely young Negroes”: Franklin, Papers, 1:378.
  5. “There is to be sold”: Ibid., 1:345.
  6. “being no more reluctant to advertise”: Nash, “Franklin and Slavery,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 621.
  7. “If these may be valued”: Franklin, Papers, 1:217.
  8. “mother of all sins”: Benjamin Lay, All Slave Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates (Philadelphia [Printed for the author], 1737), 106.
  9. “Thus shall God shed the blood”: Cited in Marcus Redeker, “The ‘Quacker Comet’ was the Greatest Abolitionist You’ve Never Heard Of,” Smithsonian Magazine, September 2017.
  10. Joseph, Jemima, Peter, Bob: As early as 1735, while still in his twenties, Franklin enslaved a boy named Joseph. See Nash, “Franklin and Slavery,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 619.
  11. “a very strong and disagreeable odour”: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832), 145, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/lhbcb/04902/04902.pdf.
  12. “in reason much inferior”: Ibid., 146.
  13. “are inferior to the whites”: Ibid., 150.
  14. “empirical temper”: I. Bernard Cohen, “The Empirical Temper,” in Charles Sanford, ed., Benjamin Franklin and the American Character (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1955), 91.
  15. was an all-in abolitionist: Not all historians are convinced Franklin had a genuine change of heart about slavery. For an opposing view, see David Waldstreicher, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2014).
  16. appointed president of the Pennsylvania: The full name of the organization was the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.
  17. “of one flesh, all the children”: Franklin, Papers, “From the Pennsylvania Abolition Society: Constitution,” April 23, 1787.

TWENTY-SIX: ETERNAL BEN

  1. “kindly intended to wean him from”: Cited in William Pepper, The Medical Side of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1911), 114.
  2. “in great agony”: Cited in Bigelow, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 12, 197.
  3. “it roused him to a display”: Ibid.
  4. “die in a decent manner”: Franklin’s friend Benjamin Rush relayed the episode in a letter to Richard Price, April 24, 1790. Cited in Zall, Ben Franklin Laughing, 98.