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Summary
Summary
National Book Award Finalist
From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister and a history of history itself. Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Unlike him, she was a mother of twelve.
Benjamin Franklin, who wrote more letters to his sister than he wrote to anyone else, was the original American self-made man; his sister spent her life caring for her children. They left very different traces behind. Making use of an amazing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one woman but an entire world--a world usually lost to history. Lepore's life of Jane Franklin, with its strikingly original vantage on her remarkable brother, is at once a wholly different account of the founding of the United States and one of the great untold stories of American history and letters: a life unknown.
Author Notes
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has written several books including Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Joe Gould's Teeth, and These Truths: A History of the United States.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Younger sister of the estimable Benjamin, Jane Franklin was born in Boston in 1712 and passed 82 years later. Doting brother Ben tutored the little girl in reading and writing-until he ran away from home at age 17-and she learned housewifery from her mother while getting a primer on the candle-making business from her father. At 15 and possibly already pregnant, Jane married Edward Mecum, a saddler so poor that he moved into the Franklin family home after the wedding. Ben Franklin, busy with the politics of the Revolution, seldom returned to Boston, and Jane, immersed in childrearing, rarely left it. Still, they remained close through correspondence, discussing current events as well as family business. Historian Lepore (The Mansion of Happiness), who has a knack for crafting a beautiful, inventive, and accessible story, has delicately and creatively pieced together a biography of Jane Franklin, despite a lack of surviving letters-Jane wrote little else, except for a small hand-stitched book in which she recorded the births and deaths of her 12 children. Lepore, in revealing the affectionate, respectful relationship between Ben and Jane, provides an invaluable view of the lives men and women led in 18th-century America. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Award-winning historian, Harvard professor, and New Yorker staff writer Lepore, whose The Mansion of Happiness (2012) was a Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction finalist, was intrigued to learn that Benjamin Franklin and his youngest sister, Jane, were so close they were called Benny and Jenny. Renowned, world-traveling brother and obscure, homebound sister exchanged loving, newsy, bantering letters for more than 60 years. Most of his were preserved, while three decades' worth of hers disappeared. This near-erasure, along with the gender bias that determined the vast differences in the siblings' education, opportunities, and experiences, become as much a focus in this zestfully rigorous portrait as Jane herself. The most poignant artifact Lepore unearthed was Jane's handmade Book of Ages, recording the birth of her 12 children and, excruciatingly, the eventual deaths of all but one of them. In spite of the tragedies she endured, Jane's surviving letters are gabby, frank, and vexed, the correspondence of a smart, witty, hardworking woman who loved best books about ideas, reveled in gossip, expressed impolite opinions on religion and politics, and shared piquant observations of the struggle for American independence. By restoring Jane so vividly to the historical record, Lepore also provides a fresh, personal perspective on Benjamin. And so extraordinarily demanding was her research, even the appendixes in Lepore's vibrantly enlightening biography are dramatic. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lepore's stature grows with each book, and this first telling of a remarkable American story, supported by a national tour and generous print run, is destined for an even greater readership.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN THE LATE 19th century B.W.H. (Before Women's History), a flourishing genre of books focused on the lives of women connected to great men of the Revolutionary era. The mother and wife of George Washington were particular favorites, along with the wives of such men as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. This biography of Benjamin Franklin's sister, Jane Franklin Mecom, does not resemble those works. Or perhaps it does. (Jill Lepore, its author, is addicted to short, dramatic sentences and occasional contradictions.) Instead of claiming important deeds for her subject, as earlier works did, she characterizes Jane Mecom's tale as "a quiet story of a quiet life of quiet sorrow and quieter beauty." Yet a reader might find reason to quarrel with the last phrase. The book's subtitle, after all, refers to Jane's "opinions," and, as Lepore observes, Jane wrote openly and freely to her famous brother throughout her life, never failing to tell him exactly what she thought and often adopting a teasing, familiar tone. Jane Franklin Mecom was Benjamin's favorite sister; of 17 children he was the youngest son, she the youngest daughter. He, six years older than she, grew up to become one of the most famous men of the 18th century - printer, scientist, diplomat, member of the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. He ran away from an apprenticeship in Boston to New York and lived in Philadelphia, London and Paris. She, by contrast, married at 15 and bore 12 children, only one of whom, a namesake daughter, survived her. Her uncommonly early marriage to a man she rarely mentioned gives Lepore pause: Might Jane have married a man who raped her? In any event, Edward Mecom was no catch. Mentally and financially unstable, he appears to have passed that instability to two of their sons. She lived much of her life in Boston, but fled during the Revolution to Rhode Island and took shelter for a time with her brother's family in Philadelphia. Benjamin taught himself good handwriting and excellent prose composition, whereas she never had time to learn more than to hold her pen awkwardly and spell poorly, even by the lax standards of their day. And yet they wrote to each other constantly. More of his letters to her survive than the reverse; he was an important Revolutionary leader, whose letters were saved by their recipients. (She was so unimportant that, Lepore tells us, the house in Boston where she spent her last years - a gift from her brother - was torn down in 1939 to improve the sightlines for a Paul Revere memorial.) He wrote more letters to her than to any other person. She also surely wrote to him more often than to anyone else, but, as Lepore's comprehensive calendar of their known letters demonstrates, many of hers have been lost. Lepore's diligent search for Jane's "remains" - belongings bequeathed to her descendants, her books and those remaining letters - constitutes a fascinating coda. Jane Franklin Mecom's early life is sparsely documented; her first extant letter was written to her sister-in-law Deborah Read Franklin in 1758, when she was 45. To fill out those initial years (and just over 100 pages), Lepore adopts several inventive narrative strategies. She details the history of the Franklin family in England and America. She ignores chronology, inserting Jane's later comments at points that seem appropriate. She deduces the contents of Jane's lost letters from Benjamin's replies. And she muses at length about Jane's "book of ages," the document that supplies Lepore's own volume with its title. She lyrically describes this register of births and deaths Jane kept for her family: "Her paper was made from rags, soaked and pulped and strained and dried. . . . It made the slimmest of volumes, no thicker than a patch of burlap. She dipped the nub of a pen slit from the feather of a bird into a pot of ink boiled of oil mixed with soot. And then, on the first page, she wrote three words : Book of Age's." (On Lepore's page, an exact reproduction of that title is inserted as an illustration.) LEPORE'S DISTINCTIVE PROSE style can be remarkably evocative. Thus her description of Jane's life as the mother of so many: "Her days were days of flesh: the little legs and little arms, the little hands, clutched around her neck, the softness. Her days were days of toil: swaddling and nursing the baby, washing and nursing the boys, scrubbing everyone's faces, answering everyone's cries, feeding everyone's hunger, cleaning everyone's waste. She taught her children to read. She made sure they learned to write better than she did." But the text can also be self-indulgent, as when it takes her four pages - discussing handwriting and the possible origins of the title "Book of Age's" - to reach the initial entries in the register, which are the birth dates of Edward and Jane, followed by the date of their marriage. Or when she riffs on other women named Jane: Lady Jane Grey, briefly queen of England in the 16th century; Jane Colman Turell, Jane Franklin's contemporary in Boston; Jane Austen. The most effective parts of the book explicitly contrast the lives of brother and sister. Although this is Lepore's first book of women's history, her approach is shaped by a modern feminist historical sensibility in the way those 19th-century works could not have been. For example, the chapter titled "Bookkeeping" begins by noting Benjamin's 1733 gift to Jane of "The Ladies Library," a classic English compilation of advice on virtue, piety and women's proper roles. Then she reports Benjamin's comments about the importance in his life of the numerous books he obtained through the Library Company of Philadelphia, an institution he founded and to which Jane could have no access. Toward the end of the chapter comes another contrast, this one between the indebtedness of her family and Benjamin's prosperity, when a sentence about Edward Mecom's stint in debtors' prison is followed immediately by "Benjamin Franklin, keeping his own accounts, credited far more than he debited." In neither case does Lepore need to add more to make her point, nor does she. That, in the end, is the message of the book: Lepore shows how the lives of the siblings were irrevocably shaped by gender. The brother, a man able to rise from poverty and to become a successful politician, is universally acknowledged to have been a genius. Was his sister one too? We cannot know, because her life was as much determined by her gender identity as was his: a woman who married young and badly, she spent most of her life mired in poverty, until - having buried her husband and raised children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren - she was able in her old age to live sparely but comfortably in a brick house in Boston's North End, to read books her brother supplied and to write him letters. But, Lepore tellingly observes, if she read his memoirs, published before she died in 1794, "she would have discovered: he never mentioned her." Jane wrote freely to her famous brother throughout her life, never failing to tell him exactly what she thought. MARY BETH NORTON'S most recent book is "Separated by Their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World."
Choice Review
Lepore (Harvard) addresses the life of Jane Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister. In describing Jane's experiences, especially the correspondence between the two siblings, the author provides new insight into Benjamin Franklin's opinions, ideas, and life experiences. Lepore's examination of these letters also educates readers about the life of 18th-century women in general. Further informing readers about women's experiences is the inclusion of other primary documents, such as Jane Franklin's "Book of Ages" (a list of births and deaths for her family), as well as documents from the lives of other period women, such as Anne Bradstreet and Jane Colman. In doing so, Lepore provides on overall history of writing and print for the era, which includes attention to literacy, letter writing, and publishing. This book provides valuable historical information, particularly related to women, but it is written in a less formal fashion than typical history books. As a result, Lepore's academic work will appeal to those doing research about women and literacy in the 18th century, but also to general readers of Colonial and Revolutionary women's history. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. T. K. Byron Dalton State College
Kirkus Review
New Yorker writer Lepore (History/Harvard Univ.; The Story of America, 2012) masterfully formulates the story of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, who will be virtually unknown to many readers, using only a few of her letters and a small archive of births and deaths. Jane Franklin Mecom (17121794) did not come into her own until she was widowed in 1765; at the time, widows possessed greater rights than married women. The first existing letter in her own hand was written when she was 45 years old. Of course, it helps that her letters were to her brother, one of the most significant figures of the time period. "He became a printer, a philosopher, and a statesman," writes the author. "She became a wife, a mother, and a widow[who] strained to form the letters of her name." Benjamin's references to her missives helped Lepore gain at least a partial picture of a little-educated woman who nonetheless showed a great mind capable of deep opinions. She was also very lucky in that her brother looked after her needs, eventually giving her a house of her own and providing her with books. Women were taught to read but not to write, so spelling and punctuation are random. Since the letters quoted in this book are unedited, the narrative pace occasionally slows, but the author's reasons become clear once she shows the result of some dastardly editing by Jared Sparks, who was famed for amassing some of the most important documents of the period relating to Franklin and George Washington. An appendix shows how Sparks' heavy-handed pencil drastically changed the meanings of many of the letters. Jane Franklin was an amazing woman who raised her children and grandchildren while still having the time to read and think for herself. We can only see into her mind because her correspondent was famous and because a vastly talented biographer reassembled her for us.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
While Benjamin Franklin became one of the most famous men of the 18th century, his younger sister Jane suffered an obscure life of poverty and unending childbearing (12 children), despite being an intelligent and perceptive commentator on events of the time. Although only a few of Jane's letters remain of the lifelong correspondence between the siblings, historian Lepore (New York Burning) reconstructs much of Jane's life from her hand-stitched "Book of Ages," her brother's letters, and other recently discovered materials. The result is a fascinating account of American colonial life with riffs on the early meaning of history and commentary on gender discrimination in the 18th century. Narrator Robin Miles's clear, pleasant voice is just right. VERDICT Listeners interested in early American history and gender issues will savor this work. ["This book is an important, inspiring portrait of a determined and faith-filled woman who just happened to be the sister of a big shot," read the starred review of the Knopf hc, LJ 9/15/13.]-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter VII Book'ry, Cook'ry She learned to bake and to roast, to mend and to scrub. She learned to sew and to knit. She helped her mother tend the garden. She learned to dye.1 She helped her father in the shop, doing the work that her brother hated, "cutting Wick for the Candles, filling the Dipping Mold, and the Molds for cast Candles."2 What more could she study? A Boston newspaper printed "A Dialogue between a thriving Tradesman and his Wife about the Education of Their Daughter." The wife wishes to send the girl to school. The husband refuses, telling her: Prithee, good Madam, let her first be able, To read a Chapter truly, in the Bible, That she may'nt mispronounce God's People, Popel, Nor read Cunstable for Constantinople; Make her expert and ready at her Prayers, That God may keep her from the Devils Snares; Teach her what's useful, how to shun deluding, To roast, to toast, to boil and mix a Pudding. To knit, to spin, to sew, to make or mend, To scrub, to rub, to earn and not to spend, I tell thee Wife, once more, I'll have her bred To Book'ry, Cook'ry, Thimble, Needle, Thread.3 That Jane Franklin learned to write as well as she did was a twist of fate: she was her brother's sister. Mostly, she learned other things. She was bred to bookery and cookery, needle and thread. She learned how to make soap. She once wrote down the family recipe. In a wooden box with a hole bored in the bottom and set over a tub filled with bricks, soak eighteen bushels of ashes and one bushel of lime with water. Leach lye. Then, in a copper pot, boil the lye with wax--"won third mirtle wax two thirds clean tallow the Greener the wax the beter," she wrote--and keep it from boiling over "by flirting the froith with a scimer." Stir in salt. "Be carefull not to Put two much salt in it will make it Britle." Line a mold with a cloth ("not too coars") and pour in the boiling soap: "keep it smoth on the top take care to let your Frame stand on a Level let care be taken when it is in that it Is not Jogd." Let it set overnight, and in the morning cut it "with a small wier fixed to a round stick at Each End." Use a gauge to make sure each cake is of equal weight and, if not, "Pare it fitt."4 She lived a life of confinement. She never learned to ride. ("I hant courage to ride a hors," she once admitted.)5 If she left the city, it was with her mother, by boat, to visit the Folgers on Nantucket, where she played with her cousin Keziah.6 She spent her Sundays at the Old South Meeting House, listening to men's voices thundering from the pulpit. She ran errands, to the shops, to the docks, and to James's printing house, to visit her brothers. She visited her married sisters and helped care for their children, or they for her: some of her nieces and nephews were older than she was. She loved best her niece Grace.7 Most days she spent at home, close to the fire. She was curious, and she could be untoward. But she was dutiful. She was pared to fit. A girl's apprenticeship was girlhood itself. A boy's apprenticeship was a trade. In 1717, when Jane was five, her brother James came back from England and set up a printing shop in Boston, "over against the Prison in Queen Street."8 It was a godsend. Here at last was a trade for Benjamin, the bookish boy too poor to go to Harvard. In 1718, he became his brother's apprentice: a printer's devil. He moved into a room above James's shop. Benny was twelve; Jenny was six. The best part of his apprenticeship, Franklin always said, was the chance it gave him to read. At the Blue Ball, he had only ever found in his father's library a few books he liked: Plutarch's Lives, "a Book of Defoe's called an Essay on Projects and another of Dr. Mather's call'd Essays to do Good." But working at a printer's shop was almost as good as working at a bookshop. "I now had Access to better Books," he remembered. "An Acquaintance with the Apprentices of Booksellers, enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my Room reading the greatest Part of the Night."9 Jane Colman read all night long, too. Her father's house was stocked with books. She read "all the English Poetry, and polite Pieces in Prose, printed and Manuscripts in her Father's well furnish'd Library, and much she borrow'd of her Friends and Acquaintance. She had indeed such a Thirst after Knowledge that the Leisure of the Day did not suffice, but she spent whole Nights in reading."10 Jane Franklin enjoyed neither the leisure of a minister's daughter nor the library of a printer's apprentice. What books she read were what books she found in the house of a poor soap boiler. "My Father's little Library consisted chiefly of Books in polemic Divinity," her brother had written. Her world of learning widened so far, and no farther. Her brother resolved to be his own tutor. Determined to become a good writer, he trained himself by reading. The boy who wanted to become the author of his own life taught himself to write by copying the prose style he found in the Spectator. "I thought the Writing excellent, and wish'd if possible to imitate it," he explained. He read an essay, wrote an abstract, and then rewrote the argument from the abstract, to see if he could improve on the original. Then he rewrote the essays as poems since, he thought, "nothing acquaints a Lad so speedily with Variety of Expression, as the Necessity of finding such Words and Phrases as will suit with the Measure, Sound and Rhime of Verse, and at the same Time well express the Sentiment." He wrote rules, pledging himself to brevity ("a multitude of Words obscure the Sense"), clarity ("To write clearly, not only the most expressive, but the plainest Words should be chosen"), and simplicity: "If a Man would that his Writings have an Effect on the Generality of Readers, he had better imitate that Gentleman, who would use no Word in his Works that was not well understood by his Cook-maid." His cook-maid . . . or his little sister. "Prose Writing has been of great Use to me in the Course of my Life," Franklin knew, "and was a principal Means of my Advancement." He would write his way up, and out.11 Reading, he grew skeptical of his family's faith. The more books he read, the less he believed the Bible. "I was scarce 15," he remembered, "when, after doubting by turns of several Points as I found them disputed in the different Books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself." He discovered, too, that he liked to argue. "My indiscrete Disputations about Religion began to make me pointed at with Horror by good People, as an Infidel or Atheist." He especially liked to debate, like "University Men," with "another Bookish Lad in the Town, John Collins by Name." They once debated "the Propriety of educating the Female Sex in Learning, and their Abilities for Study." Young Collins "was of Opinion that it was improper" and that girls "were naturally unequal to it." Franklin disagreed: "I took the contrary Side, perhaps a little for Disputes sake."12 In crafting his argument, Franklin leaned on Defoe's Essay on Projects, one of the few books in his father's library that he liked. Defoe had proposed the establishment of an "Academy for Women": "I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous Customs in the world, consider- ing us as a Civilised and a Christian Countrey, that we deny the advantages of Learning to Women." Like Astell, Defoe regretted the frivolousness of girls' education: "Their youth is spent to teach them to Stitch and Sew, or make Bawbles. They are taught to Read indeed, and perhaps to Write their Names, or so; and that is the heighth of a Woman's Education." His Academy for Women was to embrace every subject: "To such whose Genius wou'd lead them to it, I wou'd deny no sort of Learning."13 But, for all his Defoe, Franklin didn't win the argument. Collins, he admitted, "was naturally more eloquent, had a ready Plenty of Words, and sometimes . . . bore me down more by his Fluency than by the Strength of his Reasons." They parted without settling the question and continued the debate by letters. "Three or four Letters of a Side had pass'd," Franklin wrote, "when my Father happen'd to find my Papers, and read them. Without entering into the Discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the Manner of my Writing, observ'd that tho' I had the Advantage of my Antagonist in correct Spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the Printing House) I fell far short in elegance of Expression, in Method and in Perspicuity."14 Spelling and pointing (punctuating) were genteel accomplishments; they date to the rise of printing. People used to spell however they pleased, even spelling their own names differently from one day to the next. Then came the printing press, and rules for printers: how to spell, how to point. More books meant more readers; more readers meant more writers. But only the learned, only the lettered, knew how to spell. Franklin was a better speller than his friend Collins, and he could point better, too, but Collins proved a better debater. Be more precise, Josiah urged his son. Be plainer. On the question itself, he did not venture an opinion. While Benny was improving his writing by arguing about the education of girls, Jenny was at home, boiling soap and stitching. Quietly, with what time she could find, she did more. She once confided to her brother, "I Read as much as I Dare."15 1. "With all my own art & good old unkle Benjamins memorandoms I cant make them good colors," JFM wrote to her brother in 1766, suggesting that, at least at that point, she had his book of memorandums, or recipes. JFM to BF, November 8, 1766. (And she certainly owned his books of poetry, one of which is inscribed with her name.) The original of the recipe book is either lost or in private hands; all that survives is a transcription. See "Dyeing and Coloring" in "Commonplace-Book of Benjamin Franklin (1650-1727)," Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 10 (1907): 206-25. 2. BF, Autobiography, 6. 3. "A Dialogue between a thriving Tradesman and his Wife about the Education of Their Daughter," Boston Evening-Post, December 10, 1744. 4. She wrote the recipe down twice. (BF lost it; see Van Doren, Letters, 129.) JFM, "For Making Crown Soap," 1772, in Letters, 130-32. And JFM, "Recipe for Crown Soap," 1786, PBF, unpublished. I'm not certain that the dates assigned to these recipes are especially plausible. The first seems to have been written down after the death of John Franklin, to whom JFM must have been referring when she wrote, "My Brother in His Life time tould me it could not be conveyd by Recipt" (that is, that you couldn't write down this recipe; you needed to learn by doing). The original is Jane Franklin Mecom, Recipe for Crown Soap, n.d., Hays Calendar IV, 376, Franklin Papers, vol. 58, folio 19. Van Doren credited the invention of crown soap to John Franklin, without any substantiation. But as Huang has remarked, there is every reason to believe that Josiah, who trained his son, was involved in perfecting the soap ("Franklin's Father Josiah," 43-45). And as Lemay argues, Abiah must have been involved (Life of BF, 1:56) and it's highly probable that Jane was intimately involved as well, which would also account for her subsequent frustration at her sons' being kept out of the soap business. Jane herself gave some credit to her brother John. In one letter to Franklin, she refers to their brother John as "the Inventor" of crown soap, but in the same letter she explains that he had nearly as much difficulty getting it right as she did. "The Labour is Grate, & the operation critical, the Exact knolidg not to be attained without Expearance, my Brother Him self tould me it workd some times not to his mind in a way he could not account for" (JFM to BF, December 29, 1780). When sending her own soap to Franklin in 1786, and apologizing that it wasn't exactly as fine as she had hoped, she wrote, "I beleve my Brother John Perfectly understood the Exact proportion that would do best" (JFM to BF, May 29, 1786). Yet this letter does not place John so far above herself, as a soap boiler; instead, it substantiates an argument that she and her brother knew very well how to make soap even if, at the age of sixty-four, she was having a hard time remembering the exact proportions to use. 5. JFM to BF, September 12, 1779. 6. Keziah Folger was born on Nantucket on October 9, 1723, when Jane was eleven. Keziah's father, Daniel Folger, was Abiah Folger Franklin's cousin, and her mother, Abigail Folger, was actually another cousin of Abiah Folger Franklin's. Useful information about Keziah Folger Coffin was gathered by Jared Sparks in the 1830s. In 1838, William Folger of Nantucket wrote to Sparks, about Franklin, that "her parents being so nearly related to each other the Doctor used to say, that he considered Kezia as an own cousin." Jared Sparks, "Papers sent to me by William C. Folger, of Nantucket. Relating to Franklin" in "Papers relating chiefly to Franklin. Used in writing his Life, 1839," Sparks Papers, MS Sparks 19, Houghton Library, Harvard University. (The papers are filed by manuscript number; all further references to the Sparks Papers in Houghton Library supply this reference number.) Sparks also visited Nantucket, in 1826; see his diary entry for October 10, 1826, in MS Sparks 141c. Keziah Folger married John Coffin in 1746. She and Jane remained close until the American Revolution. Franklin also corresponded with Keziah, though much less frequently, it appears, than Jane did. On Keziah Folger Coffin, see Nathaniel Philbrick, Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890 (Nantucket: Mill Hill Press, 1994), 123-33, and Betsy Tyler, Sometimes Think of Me: Notable Nantucket Women Through the Centuries (Nantucket: Nantucket Historical Association, 2010), 11-17. No scholar has yet investigated the ties between the Coffins and the Mecoms. William C. Folger's notes from which he compiled the information he sent to Sparks can be found in William C. Folger, "Minutes from which my letter to Jared Sparks was Compiled and from which the account of the Folgers in Spark's [sic] Life of Franklin is derived," Peter Foulger (1618-1690), Folder 34, Folger Family Papers, Nantucket Historical Association Research Library. 7. Grace Harris was born on August 3, 1718, the daughter of Jane's sister Anne and her husband William Harris of Ipswich (PBF, 1:lvii). In 1746, Grace Harris married Jonathan Williams of Boston. Jane's friendship with Grace lasted until Grace's death in March 1790, and Jane was close to all of the Williams children. 8. Lemay, Life of BF, 1:56. On James Franklin as a dyer, see Lemay, Life of BF, 1:56-57. 9. BF, Autobiography, 9, 10. 10. Ebenezer Turell, Memoirs of the Life and Death of . . . Mrs. Jane Turell, 25. 11. BF, Autobiography, 11, and BF, "Idea of the English School," January 1751, PBF, 4:101. BF, "On Literary Style," August 2, 1733, PBF, 1:328. BF, Autobiography, 10. 12. BF, Autobiography, 45, 11. 13. Daniel Defoe, Essay on Projects (London: R.R., 1697), 282-83, 293. 14. BF, Autobiography, 11. 15. JFM to BF, October 21, 1784. This was when she was sixty-two. Excerpted from Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. xi |
| Part 1 Jane 1537-1727 | p. 1 |
| Part 2 Her Book 1727-1757 | p. 47 |
| Part 3 Letters 1758-1775 | p. 101 |
| Part 4 History 1775-1793 | p. 173 |
| Part 5 Remains 1794- | p. 243 |
| Appendices | |
| A Methods and Sources | p. 269 |
| B A Franklin Genealogy | p. 279 |
| C A Jane Genealogy | p. 280 |
| D A Calendar of the Letters | p. 283 |
| E The Editorial Hand of Jared Sparks | p. 306 |
| F Jane's Library | p. 312 |
| G A Map of Jane's Boston | p. 324 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 325 |
| Notes | p. 327 |
| Index | p. 419 |
