It takes a very inclusive anthology to encompass the protean personality and range of interests of Benjamin Franklin, but The Portable Benjamin Franklin succeeds as no collection has. In addition to the complete Autobiography, the volume contains about 100 of Franklin’s major writings—essays, journalism, letters, political tracts, scientific observations, proposals for the improvement of civic and personal life, literary bagatelles, and private musings. The selections are reprinted in their entirety and organized chronologically within six sections that represent the full range of Franklin’s temperament. The result is a zestful read for Franklin scholars and anyone wanting to know and enjoy this American icon. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

“An engrossing look at the human side of Benjamin Franklin . . . Using a post-feminist lens that’s critical of gender essentialism, Stuart rescues these women from obscurity . . . This is a terrific read: poignant, provocative, and probing.” —Library Journal, Starred Review A vivid portrait of the women who loved, nurtured, and defended America’s famous scientist and founding father. 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.

Between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the dialogue of religious skepticism and faith shaped struggles over the place of religion in politics. It produced different visions of knowledge and education in an "enlightened" society. It fueled social reform in an era of economic transformation, territorial expansion, and social change. Ultimately, as Christopher Grasso argues in this definitive work, it molded the making and eventual unmaking of American nationalism. Religious skepticism has been rendered nearly invisible in American religious history, which often stresses the evangelicalism of the era or the "secularization" said to be happening behind people's backs, or assumes that skepticism was for intellectuals and ordinary people who stayed away from church were merely indifferent. Certainly the efforts of vocal "infidels" or "freethinkers" were dwarfed by the legions conducting religious revivals, creating missions and moral reform societies, distributing Bibles and Christian tracts, and building churches across the land. Even if few Americans publicly challenged Christian truth claims, many more quietly doubted, and religious skepticism touched--and in some cases transformed--many individual lives. Commentators considered religious doubt to be a persistent problem, because they believed that skeptical challenges to the grounds of faith--the Bible, the church, and personal experience--threatened the foundations of American society. Skepticism and American Faith examines the ways that Americans--ministers, merchants, and mystics; physicians, schoolteachers, and feminists; self-help writers, slaveholders, shoemakers, and soldiers--wrestled with faith and doubt as they lived their daily lives and tried to make sense of their world.

A panoramic introduction to religion in America, newly revised and updated

In 1749, Benjamin Franklin published his educational call to arms, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania. In it, Franklin set forth a radically new template for educating students, one that stressed social utility, secular independence, and an English language-based curriculum. This slim pamphlet led to the creation of the University of Pennsylvania, the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in North America. But what were schools like in the early Delaware Valley? Who received an education; how was it financed; and where did it occur? Who were the teachers; and what was taught? The essays in this collection seek to answer these questions by looking in detail at Franklin's projects for education alongside educational plans by and for Quakers, African Americans, women, German Americans, and the other populations of Pennsylvania and the region from the colonial era through the early national period.Contributors to the volume include Michael Zuckerman, who argues that Franklin's vision of education was far more democratic than that of his counterpart Thomas Jefferson, although Jefferson is often hailed as a father of public education. William C. Kashatus surveys the many Quaker projects for education during the colonial period, while John C. Van Horne's study of projects for African American education in Philadelphia documents Franklin's involvement with the school for blacks supported by the Anglican Associates of Dr. Bray. Patrick Erben examines the diverse German communities and argues that Anglo observers like Franklin were particularly blind to innovative German educational projects occurring around them, and Carla Mulford looks at Franklin's attitudes towards women's education, both in theory and in practice. Also included are essays by George Boudreau on William Smith, the neglected pioneer of Philadelphian educational and cultural life, and by Mark Frazier Lloyd on how the Academy and College of Philadelphia under Smith moved away from Franklin's original intentions and ideals. An Afterword by University of Pennsylvania scholars Ira Harkavy, Lee Benson, and Matthew Hartley considers how Franklin's vision for education can guide institutions like Penn in the twenty-first century.These essays relate and respond to an exhibition prepared by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries in 2006, and the full catalogue of the exhibition is included in this volume. Drawing on the collections of the University of Pennsylvania, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and other Philadelphia-area libraries, museums, and schools, the exhibition surveys the educational landscape of the period and provides a vital context for understanding the importance, originality, and ongoing relevance of Franklin's vision. It includes full color reproductions of original documents, printed books, and artifacts, as well as a brief illustrated essay by Lynne Farrington on The Friendly Instructor, a newly rediscovered Franklin imprint concerning education. An accompanying photographic essay assembles for the first time images of numerous surviving school buildings in the Delaware Valley, many of them previously unknown and little studied.