Poor Richard's Women
Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Meet the overlooked women in history who loved, nurtured, and defended the famed American scientist and founding father.
“ . . . highlights a side of Ben Franklin too often ignored by historians . . . and provides a necessary reminder that the women who came into his life are as deserving of our attention as Ben himself.” —Carol Berkin, author of Revolutionary Mothers
Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era—but not about his love life. Poor Richard’s Women reveals the long-neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and prudence. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years. Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England.
Weaving detailed historical research with emotional intensity and personal testimony, Nancy Rubin Stuart traces Deborah’s life and those of Ben’s other romantic attachments through their personal correspondence. We are introduced to Margaret Stevenson, the widowed landlady who managed Ben’s life in London; Catherine Ray, the 23-year-old New Englander with whom he traveled overnight and later exchanged passionate letters; Madame Brillon, the beautiful French musician who flirted shamelessly with him, and the witty Madame Helvetius, who befriended the philosophes of pre-Revolutionary France and brought Ben to his knees.
What emerges from Stuart’s pen is a colorful and poignant portrait of women in the age of revolution. Set two centuries before the rise of feminism, Poor Richard’s Women depicts the feisty, often-forgotten women dear to Ben’s heart who, despite obstacles, achieved an independence rarely enjoyed by their peers in that era.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Stuart (Defiant Brides) offers a fresh perspective on Benjamin Franklin in this revealing study of his relationships with women. Though some scholars have described Franklin's common-law wife, Deborah Read Franklin, as "ignorant" and "provincial," Stuart rejects those characterizations as misogynist, noting that, despite her lack of formal education, Deborah's business acumen was so astute Franklin gave her power of attorney during his absences. Deborah also raised Franklin's out-of-wedlock son, Billy, though she "never loved nor accepted the child as her own," according to Stuart. Perpetually torn between his "prudence" and his "passion," Franklin's affections often wandered, usually to younger women, though his deepest relationship outside of marriage was with a woman his age: Margaret Rooke Stevenson, his widowed landlady in London. After Deborah died in 1774, Margaret hoped that Franklin would marry her, but his attentions were soon divided between two aristocratic French women—one of whom was so alarmed by his insistent marriage proposals that she fled Paris for a friend's home in Tours. Stuart paints a nuanced portrait of Deborah and the other women in Franklin's life, briskly recounts the highlights of his long and varied career, and incisively analyzes the era's gender dynamics. American history buffs will be fascinated.
