Meet the overlooked women in history who loved, nurtured, and defended the famed American scientist and founding father.

" . . . highlights a side of Ben Franklin too often ignored by historians . . . 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

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.

Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author and journalist. She is the author of seven social history books about women, including Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women Who Married Radical Men (Beacon 2013), the award-winning 2008 biography The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, and The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox (Harcourt, 2005.) Her journalistic writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New England Quarterly, American History, and Huffington Post. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Cape Cod Writers Center in Osterville, MA.

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 forty-four 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 twenty-three-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.

INTRODUCTION

1
"A Most Awkward Ridiculous Appearance"

2
"A Man and Not an Angel"

3
"Like a Faithful Pair of Doves"

4
"In the Dark, All Cats Are Grey"

5
"Kisses in the Wind"

6
The Ghost Wife

7
Home, But Not in His Heart

8
"One Continued State of Suspense"

9
"How I Long to See You"

10
"I Desire That You May Love Me Forever"

11
"By the Way, What Did You Do to That Shoulder?"

12
"Prudence Is Not Your Strongest Point"

13
"As Long As We Will Exist You Will Not Be Abandoned"

14
"We Are Apt to Forget That We Are Grown Old"

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index