Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (82 page)

48
. Archives of Congregation Mikveh Israel, Apr. 30, 1788 (Franklin’s gift is one of the three largest of forty-four, and he is on top of the subscriber list), www.mikvehisrael.org/gifs/frank2.jpg ; BF to John Calder, Aug. 21, 1784.

49
. BF to Ezra Stiles, Mar. 9, 1790.

50
. BF to Thomas Jefferson, Apr. 8, 1790.

51
. Reports of Dr. John Jones and Benjamin Rush, in Sparks and elsewhere; Pa. Gazette, Apr. 21, 1790; Benjamin Bache to Margaret Markoe, May 2, 1790.

52
. Epitaph, 1728; this is the version Temple Franklin published. See Papers CD 41:u539. Franklin also produced slightly edited versions, including one that ends “Corrected and amended/By the author” (Papers 1:109a).

53
. Last will and testament, plus codicil, June 23, 1789, Papers CD 46:u20.

1
. Last will and testament, plus codicil, June 23, 1789, Papers CD 46:u20; Skemp
William,
275. The will and codicil are at www.sln.fi.edu/franklin/family/ lastwill.html.

2
. WF to TF, July 3, 1789; Skemp
William,
275; Lopez
Private,
309. A full and authorized English edition of Franklin’s autobiography was not published until 1868.

3
. The two great books on Benjamin Bache and his paper are Jeffery A. Smith,
Franklin and Bache: Envisioning the Enlightened Republic
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), and Richard Rosenfeld,
American Aurora
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1997). See also Bernard Faÿ,
The Two Franklins
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1933).

4
. Patricia Nealon, “Ben Franklin Trust to Go to State, City,”
Boston Globe,
Dec. 7, 1993, A22; Clark DeLeon, “Divvying Up Ben,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
Feb. 7, 1993, B2; Tom Ferrick Jr., “Ben Franklin’s Gift Keeps Giving,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
Jan. 27, 2002, B1; Tour de Sol Web site, www.nesea.org/transportation/ tour ;
The Franklin Gazette,
printed by the Friends of Franklin Inc., www.benfranklin2006.org (spring 2002); Philadelphia Academies Annual Report 2001 and Web site, www.academiesinc.org. Web sites on Franklin’s bequest include www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2000-01/lastpage.html ; www.cs.app state.edu/˜sjg/class/1010/wc/finance/benfranklin.html ; www.lehighvalleyfounda tion.org/support.html#BenFranklin.

1
.
The Nation,
July 9, 1868, reprinted in Norton Autobiography 270. See also Nian-Sheng Huang,
Benjamin Franklin in American Thought and Culture, 1790–1990
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1994).

2
. The Provost Smith papers,
Pennsylvania Gazette,
Apr. 1997, www.upenn.edu/gazette/0497/.

3
. John Adams,
Boston Patriot,
May 15, 1811.

4
. Gordon Wood,
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
(New York: Vintage, 1991), 347; John Adams to TF, May 5, 1817; Francis, Lord Jeffrey,
Edinburgh Review
8 (1806), in Norton Autobiography 253. Jeffrey was reviewing an earlier unauthorized edition of the writings and autobiography.

5
. Robert Spiller, “Franklin and the Art of Being Human,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
100.4 (Aug. 1956): 304.

6
. John Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, Oct. 31, 1818; Leigh Hunt,
Autobiography
(New York: Harper, 1850), 1:130–32; both reprinted in Norton Autobiography 257, 266.

7
. Herman Melville,
Israel Potter
(1855; New York: Library of America, 1985), chapter 8, http://www.melville.org/hmisrael.htm ; Autobiography 45.

8
. Emerson’s Journals 1:375, quoted in Campbell 35; Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Works,
12:189, cited in Yale Autobiography 13.

9
. David Brooks, “Among the Bourgeoisophobes,”
The Weekly Standard,
Apr. 15, 2002.

10
. Mark Twain, “The Late Benjamin Franklin,”
The Galaxy,
July 1870.

11
. Jim Powell, “How Benjamin Franklin’s
Autobiography
inspired all kinds of people to help themselves,” www.libertystory.net/LSCONNFRAN.htm.

12
. Frederick Jackson Turner, essay in
The Dial,
May 1887; William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study,”
Harper’s,
Apr. 1888; reprinted in Norton Autobiography.

13
. Max Weber,
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
first published (in German) in 1904 and revised in 1920 (New York: Harper Collins, 1930), 52–53; Van Wyck Brooks,
America’s Coming of Age,
originally published in 1915 as an essay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1934); William Carlos Williams,
In the Grain
(New York: New Directions, 1925), 153; Sinclair Lewis,
Babbitt,
first published in 1922, chapter 16, section 3, see www.bartleby.com/162/16.html.

14
. D. H. Lawrence, “Benjamin Franklin,”
Studies in Classic American Literature
(New York: Viking, 1923), 10–16, xroads.virginia.edu/˜HYPER/LAWRENCE/ dhlch02.htm ; Cervantes,
Don Quixote,
part 2, chapter 33; Aesop, “The Milkmaid and the Pail.” Franklin did cite the maxim “Honesty is the best policy” in a letter to Edward Bridgen, Oct. 2, 1779, but it was part of a list of maxims that could be on coins, and he did not claim it as his own.

15
. Charles Angoff,
A Literary History of the American People
(New York: Knopf, 1931), 296–308.

16
. Herbert Schneider,
The Puritan Mind
(New York: Henry Holt, 1930); Van Doren 782; I. Bernard Cohen,
Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), 73.

17
. For more on Dale Carnegie’s
How to Win Friends and Influence People
(1937; New York: Pocket Books, 1994), see ch. 4 n. 6, above; E. Digby Baltzell,
Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia
(New York: Free Press, 1979), 55.

18
. FranklinCovey Web site, www.franklincovey.com ; Grady McAllister, “An Unhurried Look at Time Management,” vasthead.com/Time/tm_papl.html. Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster,
In Search of America
(New York: Hyperion, 2002), chapter 3, reports on an interesting class discussion by Baylor professor Blaine Mc-Cormick about Franklin as the founding father of business books.

19
. Brands 715; Morgan
Franklin,
314.

20
. Alan Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,”
The New Republic,
Mar. 19, 2001, 39. The play
1776,
by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, opened at Broadway’s 46th Street Theater on Mar. 16, 1969, ran for 1,217 performances, and was made into a film in 1972; Howard Da Silva played Franklin on both stage and screen.
Ben Franklin in Paris,
by Mark Sandrich Jr. and Sidney Michaels, opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Oct. 27, 1964, and ran for 215 performances with Robert Preston playing Franklin.

21
. David Brooks, “Our Founding Yuppie,”
The Weekly Standard,
Oct. 23, 2000, 32, 35.

22
. BF to JM, July 17, 1771.

23
. Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” 39.

24
. Vernon Parrington,
Main Currents in American Thought
(New York: Harcourt, 1930), 1:178.

25
. Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” 39.

26
. Poor Richard’s, 1750; BF to Louis Le Veillard, Mar. 6, 1786; Autobiography 107 (all use the “empty sack” line).

27
. Brooks, “Our Founding Yuppie,” 35.

28
. Autobiography 139.

29
. Angoff,
A Literary History of the American People,
306; Garry Wills,
Under God
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 380.

30
. Henry Steele Commager,
The American Mind
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 26; John Updike, “Many Bens,”
New Yorker,
Feb. 22, 1988, 115.

31
. David Hume to BF, May 10, 1762; Campbell 356.