Prose was another matter. In 1721 James Franklin founded a weekly newspaper, the New-England Courant, to which readers were invited to contribute. He had intended to have my Child inoculated, as soon as he should have recovered sufficient Strength from a Flux with which he had been long afflicted.. The Practice of Inoculation for the Small-Pox, begins to grow among us, he wrote the next month, adding that the first Patient of Note, a man named J. , I first read this letter decades ago, when I was still a young man, & found it delightfully funny but with more than a few kernels of wisdom now, when some might consider me to be the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars, I cant completely agree with Franklin in regard to marriage making one compleat, but much of the advice in the letter makes sense certainly from the point of view of a cultured 18th century man & every re-reading makes me laugh at Franklins very modern sense of humor! the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion. LOL. At some point in the year after Franky died, Benjamin commissioned a portrait of the boy. the state in which you will find solid happiness. Jednm z jeho najvch diplomatickch spechov v Pari bolo v roku 1783 dosiahnutie mierovej zmluvy s Vekou Britniou, m bola v podstate ukonen vojna o nezvislos USA. 2.Ford, Franklin Bibliog., no. He even turned them into poetry and then back into prose. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. For more on the Daylight Saving debate, visit ProCon.org. It is the man who should feel grateful that an older woman might deem him interesting enough, stimulating enough and attractive enough that she would choose to spend whatever precious time she has left on the earth with him! Franklin agreed to take in the child as his own. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. I think it is just the opposite Oh yeah!!! A recurring theme was Benjamins belief that Deborah was irresponsible. preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources, relating to the history of Franklin agreed to take custody of the babya gesture as admirable as it was uncommonbut that decision made his need for a wife urgent and finding one problematic. In a January 1772 letter to his sister Jane, he shared the emotions the boy stirred in himemotions he had hidden from his wife. Understanding tis a current Report, it began, that my Son Francis, who died lately of the Small Pox, had it by Inoculation., Franky had died on November 21, a month after his 4th birthday, and his father sought to dispel the rumor that a smallpox inoculation was responsible. ( 337 ) $9.99. . A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. There was no money waiting, not for equipment, not even for his return passage. And when Franklin sailed for London in 1757 he made no secret of his ambivalence about leaving his 14-year-old daughter with Deborah. Avoid, both before and after marriage, all thoughts of managing your husband, he advised wives. Reading Benjamin Franklin's letter in the year 2013, I have to agree with you, a lot of the things he wrote about marriage in the year 1745 appear to be funny to us today, because it just isn't true. Stranded, he wrote Deborah a single letter, saying he would be away indefinitely. Thus they continue amiable. Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. Biographers and historians tend to shy away from his married life, perhaps because it defies idealization. Benjamin accepted the form and function of married lifeeven writing about it (skeptically) in his newspaperbut kept his wife at arms length. Whether the United States keep Daylight Saving Time as first whimsically suggested by Benjamin Franklin is widely debated. B.R. A year later he bought the towns second newspaper operation, renamed and reworked it, and began making a success of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Protect and keep contributing to your investment." -Karen Gordon Such women, he wrote, have sound and healthy Constitutions, produce vigorous Offspring, are active in the Business of the Family, special good Housewives, and very Careful of their Husbands Interest. Its unlikely that he would have included produce vigorous Offspring if his son, then 9 months old, had been sickly. On another occasion, Franklin wrote of her many good qualities but conspicuously left out any mention of her being a good mother, a slap in the face at the time. They did consummate their marriage and have a child. The Gazette of April 17, 1746, announced this pamphlet as Just Published. Charles R. Hildeburn assigned it to Franklin on the authority of a note, which he quoted as By Benjamin Franklin. All rights reserved. Deborah Crocker. The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. 9) He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else. Young Franklin discovered a volume of The Spectatorfeaturing Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steeles famous periodical essays, which had appeared in England in 171112and saw in it a means for improving his writing. Even with those deathswhich doctors attributed to smallpox contracted before inoculationthe inoculation death rate was negligible compared with the fatality rate from naturally acquired smallpox. Im sure it has nothing to do with my mother or daughter. His first enthusiasm was for poetry, but, discouraged with the quality of his own, he gave it up. A few weeks later he was rooming at the Reads and employed as a printer. After that, the two were together only seven times in their . Just as people change over time so do words. For the last 10 years of their 44-year marriage Read stayed in Philadelphia while Franklin spent all his time in Europe. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy. On September 1, 1730 Benjamin Franklin married Deborah Read. How Many People Signed the U.S. Constitution? So what should we make of Benjamin Franklin? Franklin argued in his essay that since human beings have no real freedom of choice, they are not morally responsible for their actions. Benjamin Franklin, also called Ben Franklin, pseudonym Richard Saunders, (born January 17 [January 6, Old Style], 1706, Boston, Massachusetts [U.S.]died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat. 1731-1775. Sherry Riter a.k.a. Benjamin Franklin: The Tamed Womanizer. Usually, inoculated patients became slightly ill, broke out in a few, smallish pox, and recovered quickly, immune to the disease for the rest of their lives. The disease was fatal in more than 30 percent of all cases and even more deadly to children. In London Franklin quickly found employment in his trade and was able to lend money to Ralph, who was trying to establish himself as a writer. He had dated a woman named Deborah Read, but after Franklin left to go across the ocean to Great Britain, she married a man named Roger Potter. Benjamin's son William Franklin was most likely born around 1730 out of an illegitimate relationship that later became a common-law marriage. Then he had his own romantic calamity: He learned that a young woman of his acquaintance was pregnant with his child. Benjamin loved the child and his new role as a dad, but that did not mean he opened up to be more of a loving husband to Deborah. He would later admit that by degrees he forgot my engagements with Miss Read. In declaring this a great Erratum of his life, he took responsibility for Deborahs ill-fated marriage to a potter named John Rogers. By the spring of 1724 he was enjoying the companionship of other young men with a taste for reading, and he was also being urged to set up in business for himself by the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith. But a few weeks later, the stranger became a boarder in the Read home. Benjamin's great-great-grandfather was Thomas Franklin who was born in 1540 in Ecton, England, and worked as a blacksmith. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the most recognized American polymath, also participated in the music domain during his lifetime and, in addition to the knowledge of several instruments and commentaries on music theory, left a legacy as an instrument maker and a composer. The Franklins had eight grandchildren: Benjamin, William, Betsy, Louis, Deborah, Richard, Sarah and William Temple (son of Benjamin's illegitimate son William). Are You. A stunning new theory suggests that a debate over the failed treatment of their sons smallpox was the culprit. When Benjamin Franklin Ware was born on 21 October 1924, in Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, United States, his father, Ernest Franklin Ware, was 19 and his mother, Opal Tressie Neal, was 15. Year after year Deborah stoically endured the snubbing, even after she had a stroke in early spring 1769. Poor Richard's Almanack, p.17, Barnes & Noble Publishing. Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox in New England, 1722. 1523. Deborah appears to have embraced it without qualmand over time seems to have accepted it as a surrogate for her son. Not until December 30 did he break his silence, in a stunning 137-word note at the end of that weeks Gazette. Ignoring the spelling errors, I still find this letter funny. Failing to find work in New York City, Franklin at age 17 went on to Quaker-dominated Philadelphia, a much more open and religiously tolerant place than Puritan Boston. If Deborah was the model for this fictional wife, as she seems to have been, its worth noting the authors rationale for preferring her type. Benjamin Franklin was born in a small house on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts on January 6, 1706, the son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient. As to Frankys general health, the best evidence is in Franklins 1733 piece in the Gazette celebrating a scolding wife. ..the Benjamin Schenck Mansion is supposedly one of the most haunted places in all of Indiana. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. Lemay, one of Franklins best biographers, is representative. 7) They who have nothing to trouble them will be troubled at nothing. Benjamin Franklin was the George Clooney of his day. Benjamin, too, had been jilted. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin proved good business partners, but that was where amicable relations ended. This article is a selection from the September issue of Smithsonian magazine. By now you already know that one of my favorite people in history is Benjamin Franklin. The boy that seemed so mature because he was very distant during courtship may continue to be distant after marriage as well; if a wife is then looking for a closer and warmer relationship, she will spend the rest of her married life feeling cheated of that closeness. William Franklin was born Feb. 22, 1762, followed by the birth of Francis on Oct. 20, 1732 and . Mulligan: Franklin, of course, never sent "Fart . At the same time, he also pityd Deborahs unfortunate Situation. He noted that she was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided Company, presumably including his. That scenarioparents unable to agree on inoculation for their childwas precisely the one Ben Franklin fixed on two decades after his sons death, when he wrote about impediments to the procedures public acceptance. I agree with him that marriage adds to each of us and makes us whole. She is best remembered as the grandmother of Benjamin Franklin. Your Privacy Rights He. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly producd may be attended with much Inconvenience. Much has been made of Franklin being a womanizer, especially in Europe. New indentures were drawn up but not made public. Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards. , LOL!!! Reflections on Courtship and Marriage: in Two Letters to a Friend. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends, Benjamin Franklin (2004). 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