Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father

Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father by Nancy Rubin Stuart

We can't seem to get enough of Ben Franklin -- the thrifty inventor-statesman of the revolutionary era with remarkable achievements in publishing, business, politics, diplomacy, and invention. A man so confident in his own immortality that he tempted lightning to strike the same place twice. We know all about the key and the kite, the post offices, the libraries, the bifocals, the fire departments, and the almanacs. But what about the woman who raised his children, ran his businesses, built their house, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England?

In Poor Richard's Women, author and journalist Nancy Rubin Stuart 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 forty-four years. While she was long dismissed by historians as "shrill, dumpy and semi-literate, " and "neither educated nor interesting," Stuart illustrates who Deborah truly was -- an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and supported Ben through his achievements, despite being erased in history.

Weaving detailed historical research with emotional intensity and personal testimony, 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 twenty-three-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 philosophies 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.

BEACON PRESS, HARDCOVER, 1ST EDITION, 1ST PRINTING, 2022.