Jane Franklin was the
younger sister of Benjamin Franklin. He was the youngest son and she the
youngest daughter of a large colonial family in Boston. He was six years older
than she and, due to gender, miles ahead of her in opportunity. While he was
provided with some education and allowed to leave the family candle-making
business for an apprenticeship in printing, she, as was standard for the times,
was kept at home with no opportunity for education or choice in
employment. He went on to become one of
the wealthiest and most accomplished men of all time: writer, scientist,
philosopher, diplomat and Founding Father of our country. She became the wife
of a poor man and mother of twelve children, only one of whom survived her. He
wrote many books and pamphlets, including his Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanac which are still read today. Her only book, Book of Ages, was a handmade book for personal use, in which she recorded the
births and deaths of her children and husband. But she was a writer, exchanging
letters with her brother and other friends throughout her life. Her letters
have survived due to her connection to her famous brother. Now author Jill Lepore has used them to write
a life of Jane Franklin. Few people have
ever been as gifted as Benjamin Franklin, but in Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, Lepore paints a picture of a woman whose innate
intelligence outshines her lack of education.
Life in the colonies before and during the Revolutionary War required a
courage and perseverance hard for modern Americans to comprehend. Jane
Franklin’s letters assist historians in their examination of the life of
ordinary people in Colonial America. Drudgery, poverty, illness and death were
the order of the day for the American colonists, particularly the women. The
rights of women lagged behind the Rights of Man and, in fact, were years in coming.
But women contributed to the struggle for independence as well as men, as this
book shows.
