Publishers Weekly
11/08/2021
Journalist Stuart (Defiant Brides) offers a fresh perspective on Benjamin Franklin in this revealing study of his relationships with women. Though some scholars have described Franklin’s common-law wife, Deborah Read Franklin, as “ignorant” and “provincial,” Stuart rejects those characterizations as misogynist, noting that, despite her lack of formal education, Deborah’s business acumen was so astute Franklin gave her power of attorney during his absences. Deborah also raised Franklin’s out-of-wedlock son, Billy, though she “never loved nor accepted the child as her own,” according to Stuart. Perpetually torn between his “prudence” and his “passion,” Franklin’s affections often wandered, usually to younger women, though his deepest relationship outside of marriage was with a woman his age: Margaret Rooke Stevenson, his widowed landlady in London. After Deborah died in 1774, Margaret hoped that Franklin would marry her, but his attentions were soon divided between two aristocratic French women—one of whom was so alarmed by his insistent marriage proposals that she fled Paris for a friend’s home in Tours. Stuart paints a nuanced portrait of Deborah and the other women in Franklin’s life, briskly recounts the highlights of his long and varied career, and incisively analyzes the era’s gender dynamics. American history buffs will be fascinated. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
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
“This readable, well-researched book will appeal to those interested in the unruly intimate life of archrationalist Franklin as well as students of the too-often-ignored roles of women in the historical record. A revealing document about early American history.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fresh perspective on Benjamin Franklin in this revealing study of his relationships with women . . . Stuart paints a nuanced portrait of Deborah and the other women in Franklin’s life, briskly recounts the highlights of his long and varied career, and incisively analyzes the era’s gender dynamics. American history buffs will be fascinated.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Stuart has an engaging style and weaves in significant historical context. Readers will encounter illegitimate offspring, broken engagements, long silences, suspicious gifts, eighteenth-century social conventions, and unique and compelling women.”
—Booklist
“Poor Richard’s Women add[s] nuance and context to the life of a man who appears to have valued the intellectual capabilities and wit of women while also being confounded by them.”
—Old Colony Memorial
“A delightful addition to biographies and bookshelves everywhere.”
—Colonial Review
“Poor Richard’s Women is a thoughtful and probing look at the love life of one of our most prominent founding fathers. Stuart’s impeccable research and entertaining writing provide an eminently satisfying read that is both illuminating and balanced without falling prey to the salacious gossip of the day that ensnared other historians.”
—Providence Journal
“Ben Franklin, our enigmatic founding father, continues to fascinate, and in Poor Richard’s Women, Nancy Rubin Stuart gives the women in his life their due, showing them as real persons, with both limitations and achievements, rather than the pathetic, laughable figures so often described in books about him. Poor Richard’s Women is a treat for anyone interested in women of his time or Ben himself.”
—Betty Boyd Caroli, author of Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President
“Nancy Rubin Stuart highlights a side of Ben Franklin too often ignored by historians. . . . Stuart uncovers a man often dependent upon women’s care and support, a man eager to be loved, and a man driven by passions as much as by politics and science. Poor Richard’s Women fills in the blanks of the life we’ve known this founding father to live and provides a necessary reminder that the women who came into his life are as deserving of our attention as Ben himself.”
—Carol Berkin, author of Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence
“Poor Richard’s Women is narrative history at its best, as it offers compelling insights into the character of Benjamin Franklin. Nancy Rubin Stuart rescues Franklin’s women from the margins, making them central to our understanding of a man who fought a never-ending internal battle between ‘prudence and passion.’ Engaging and fascinating, Poor Richard’s Women is a must-read for anyone looking to learn more about the man they thought they knew.”
—Sheila Skemp, author of The Making of a Patriot: Benjamin Franklin at the Cockpit
“[A] fascinating and fast-paced new look at the life of Benjamin Franklin, as told through the colorful prism of the women around him. Nancy Rubin Stuart explores his longest relationships, his fleeting infatuations, and everything in between. She shines a fresh light on old Ben while giving us a new appreciation for the women, who live and breathe in these pages as they haven’t since the eighteenth century. A refreshing read.”
—William Martin, author of Citizen Washington and December ’41
Library Journal
★ 01/01/2022
Journalist Stuart's (Defiant Brides) new women's history is an engrossing look at the human side of Benjamin Franklin, one of the nation's best-known Founding Fathers. Franklin's image as a womanizer is fairly well established, but less familiar are the stories of the various women whom he loved, lived with, and courted throughout his life. Using a post-feminist lens that's critical of gender essentialism, Stuart rescues these women from obscurity, focusing on their lives, emotions, and feelings as much as she strives to understand the complexity of Franklin's views on love, sexuality, and human relationships. His struggle with both "passion and prudence" is the book's theme. Its main contribution is its sensitive portrayal of Franklin's common law wife Deborah Read, with whom he lived for 44 years. Stuart depicts Read as an astute businesswoman and vital support to Franklin; someone who tended to his financial and business interests during his long overseas ventures. Describing his other love affairs against the backdrop of domestic and international politics, Stuart attempts to make sense of Franklin's complicated and unorthodox attachments by juxtaposing them against statements from his various writings. VERDICT For lovers of biography, American history, and women's studies. This is a terrific read: poignant, provocative, and probing.—Marie M. Mullaney
Kirkus Reviews
2021-10-07
A journalist and social historian explores how Benjamin Franklin “was fascinated by the fair sex but considered the currents between them as dangerous as electricity.”
Most people know Franklin as the scientist, statesman, and eminent man of American letters. But as Stuart, executive director of the Cape Cod Writers Center, demonstrates in this biography, beneath the distinguished façade was a man who “privately struggled with prudence and passion.” Born to a British “soap and tallow candle maker” and his New England wife, Franklin later fled to Philadelphia after breaking an apprenticeship contract with his brother, a master printer. Stuart argues that Franklin’s pragmatism accounted for the choice he made to wed Deborah Read, a wealthy carpenter’s daughter. For the duration of their common-law marriage, she managed Franklin’s business affairs, bore his daughter Sally, and raised the son he had by a different woman. “While not intellectually brilliant like Ben,” writes Stuart, “Deborah was an astute businesswoman and devoted helpmate who not only contributed to his early success but also attended to his complex business affairs during his years overseas.” His passionate midlife flirtations with a much younger family friend did not imperil their relationship; nor did Deborah’s decision to remain in Philadelphia while he traveled to Britain as a colonial agent. His motherly landlady, Margaret Stevenson, quickly became the unacknowledged “second wife” with whom he lived contentedly during his years in London. But neither of these “wives” was ever able to quell Franklin’s passions. His later years as senior statesman in France brought with them two intense—but ultimately unconsummated—simultaneous romances with a beautiful but married and possessive young aristocrat, Madame Brillon, and a much older “freewheeling” widow, Madame Helvétius. This readable, well-researched book will appeal to those interested in the unruly intimate life of archrationalist Franklin as well as students of the too-often-ignored roles of women in the historical record.
A revealing document about early American history.
