Book of Ages Pdf Summary
From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians-a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.
It is a life that has never been examined before: that of the sister of one of the most remarkable men of their time, living unknown to the world at large, but a constant presence and influence in her brother’s life through their correspondence (he wrote more letters to her than to anyone else). Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world. Lepore’s life of Jane Franklin, with its strikingly original vantage on Benjamin Franklin, is at once a wholly different account of the founding and one of the great untold stories of American history and letters
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Book of Ages Review
4.0 out of 5 stars Benny and Jenny
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 31, 2016
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This is the story of Benjamin Franklin’s favorite sister, Jane Franklin Mecom. Six years younger that her famous brother, Jane benefited from a particularly close relationship with him all her life. In spite of her lack of formal education, she learned to read and write at an early age. Her writing was never that of an educated person, but she managed to make herself and her opinions clear in spite of idiosyncratic spelling. In fact, IMHO, the advantages of texting and Facebook, make it possible for these less educated than most to have a voice in the common discourse once closed to them.
Just because she was denied the benefits of a formal education, Jane evidences the presences of a shrewd gauge of human beings and a willingness to express her mind in vivid prose. One wonders what would have become of her if she had been born a boy. With such a brother to back him and mind his business, who knows how life would have been eased for Franklin.
Instead, Jane was married young to a ne’er-do-well, and spent her life trying to care for and support her children who survived and depended on their mother for their financial as well as emotional support. More than once she fled ahead of a hostile army, carrying what she could. She turned to her more famous brother, not for money but for supplies to support her in work by sending her necessary items to make it possible to support herself. She never asked in vain.
Jill Lepore had a monumental task ahead of her. Even the letters of famous men were treated with less than respect. One editor felt it necessary to clean up her language and spelling before publishing a portion of one of her letters in relation to Franklin’s life. Even George Washington was not immune to this disregard. His first inaugural address was sliced into pieces and the pieces were handed out to friends of one historian.
How much less respect would be paid to an uneducated woman? In spite of the challenges, Jill Lepore manages to gather enough from the scraps that have been preserved to weave together this fascinating account of one women’s life.
4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written history
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 23, 2014
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It was a little disappointing to think I was going to be reading a book about Jane Franklin to find out the first half was really about her brother because there is very little of her from that time that remains. I would have like the note from the author at the very end to be in the beginning. My expectations for information on Jane were higher than what I got based on the title, but that being said this is a well-written book. I listened to it on Audible because even though I had it on my Kindle, the quotes from the time before American English had standardized spelling was bogging me down in print. Listening to Robin Miles read it to me added greatly to my enjoyment of it. At the end when Jill Lepore explains her process of getting letters and information on Jane, I was able to appreciate the book better. I found that the turning point for me that made me start to enjoy the book more was when Jane’s husband died and her brother the famous Franklin starts providing for her. Jane had an incredibly hard life with a husband who was an extremely poor provider, many of her children dying young, trying to keep family out of the poor house and mental illness in her family. When Benjamin Franklin removes her stress by providing for her and more of her letters survive, it is a much more enjoyable book. There was a distracting part early on where Jill Lepore keeps comparing Jane to another Jane who grew up in richer circumstances. This was confusing, but it did show the difference in upbringing that Jane Franklin had compared to wealthier women at her time. I have always been a fan of history that tells us how people really lived. Yes, Benjamin Franklin was an important figure in American history, but to know what a particular woman of his time had to go through (lack of education, evacuation during war, loss of family) was enlightening. If you realize that this book is hampered by a lack of first hand information on Jane Franklin’s early years and adjust your expectations accordingly, you will enjoy it.
4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating book!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 31, 2014
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Book of Ages by Jill Lepore is a fascinating book. It tells the story of Benjamin Franklin’s sister Jane. The story is told through the letters that Benjamin and Jane exchanged. Unfortunately while Jane kept almost of all of Benjamin’s correspondence, he did not keep all of hers. So, a lot of the story is filled in with possible actions based on what other women at the time were doing. Still it’s purpose is to show the sharp contrast between what a man could achieve at that time versus what a woman could achieve. The book itself reads more like a research paper than a book, with footnotes liberally adorning every page. At first, I checked each one out, but then eventually grew tired of that.
I read the book on my Kindle and could tell that it was a long book by how little my percentage read decreased after each read. As I as reading it, it held my interest, but I was dismayed to see how little progress I made. After Jane died, I was still only on 40-something percent and couldn’t figure out what the rest of the book would be about. I soon found out that the whole second half of the book is an appendix of sorts. More research type notes. So, if you are reading it on a Kindle, and can’t tell what’s coming up, just know that the book is not nearly as long as it seems to be (unless you go through and read the whole second half – which I didn’t).
Overall, this was a very interesting book. Jane was intelligent, but was not given the same opportunities as her brother, so there is no real way to know what she could have accomplished if given the chance.
About Jill Lepore Author Of Book of Ages pdf Book
Jill Lepore Author Of Book of Ages pdf Book, He is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard’s History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and the Berkshire Prize and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Award.
A co-founder of the magazine Common-place, Lepore’s essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Journal of American History and American Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Charles Warren Center, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the National Park Service and currently serves on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery and the Society of American Historians.
Jill lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Book of Ages pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Publisher : Knopf; 2nd Edition (October 1, 2013)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307958345
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307958341
- Item Weight : 1.78 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.55 x 1.48 x 9.45 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #960,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,062 in U.S. Revolution & Founding History
- #3,245 in Women in History
- #10,194 in Women’s Biographies
- Customer Reviews: 4.1 out of 5 stars 474 ratings
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