Tag: Benjamin Franklin

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Colonel Michael Kovats: The Hungarian Co-founder of the American Cavalry

Among the foreign-born leaders who played crucial roles in the American Revolution, Hungarian-born Colonel Commandant Michael Kovats de Fabriczy stands out for his significant, yet often overlooked, contributions to the Continental Army.[1] Kovats played a key role in the establishment and development of the cavalry, overseeing the recruitment, training, and organization of regular cavalry units. […]

by Zoltán Pintér and Anna Smith Lacey
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America’s Forgotten Founder: Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes

Historians generally agree on who were America’s principal Founders, but the roll call invariably omits the name of one individual without whose steadfast assistance the United States would have been unlikely to have gained independence. Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister throughout the long, desperate war, was a crucial player in America’s victory […]

by John Ferling
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The Plot to Partition America

As the American Revolution morphed into a world war with the entrance of France and Spain, the diplomatic attempts to settle it became more complex. Europe became a hotbed of diplomatic activity, conducted by both state-sanctioned negotiators and freelancers of various sorts, all with their own agendas for negotiations. There was a series of third-party […]

by Richard J. Werther
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Quotes About or By Native Americans, 1751 to 1793

Quotes about indigenous Native Americans are brimming with paradoxes. Benjamin Franklin praised their martial skills and the political structure of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy yet labeled them “ignorant savages.” John Adams chastised the French utilization of native warriors in the French and Indian Wars while Philip Schuyler wooed Oneida warriors with false promises of equality and […]

by Victor J. DiSanto
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This Week on Dispatches: Ray Raphael on Benjamin Franklin’s Greatest Fear

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR editor and distinguished historian Ray Raphael on his recent article about “kingly government,” Benjamin Franklin’s greatest fear for the new country. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]

by Editors
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A Kingly Government? Benjamin Franklin’s Great Fear

In the beginning, there was Congress. On May 29, 1787, a Tuesday, with delegates to the Federal Convention seated and rules settled, Virginia’s governor Edmund Randolph introduced his state’s vision for the new nation. Article 1 set the stage: “Resolved that the Articles of Confederation ought to be corrected & enlarged” to provide for “common […]

by Ray Raphael
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Parliament’s Stamp Act Dilemma

In 1763, the powers of Europe signed the Peace of Paris bringing an end to the French and Indian War. The Kingdom of Great Britain emerged victorious, seizing from France several new territories throughout Canada and east of the Mississippi. But victory came at tremendous cost. The war debt incurred over the last seven years […]

by Rex Payne
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Franklin

TELEVISION REVIEW: Franklin. Directed by Tim Van Patten. Written by Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder. Featuring Michael Douglas, Noah Jupe, Daniel Mays, and Eddie Marsan. Released April 12–May 17, 2024. Apple TV+. Franklin, as a television miniseries, is well done. Rarely do we see this time period—the eighteenth century—televised. This eight-hour program has spectacular production […]

by Al Dickenson
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France Pays Tribute to Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin died at his home in Philadelphia at eleven o’clock p.m. on April 17, 1790; he was eighty-four years old. On June 4, Benjamin Vaughan, a doctor, Member of Parliament and friend of Franklin, wrote to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, another friend of Franklin. In his letter that arrived on June 10, he […]

by Bob Ruppert
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Allegories of Benjamin Franklin

It is common for nations to search for heroes to emulate a lofty standard for their citizens. Benjamin Franklin may be unique in that he ascended to the level of apotheosis, not initially from the acclaim of his own countrymen, but from citizens of the country abroad where he functioned as a diplomat.[1] One of […]

by Louis Arthur Norton
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Thomas Hutchinson and His Letters

We often remember the controversy surrounding the Hutchinson Letters, which inspired many colonists to oppose the provincial government in Massachusetts, by talking about Benjamin Franklin (who found and sent the letters) and Samuel Adams (who helped publish them). Our memory of the letters’ author, Thomas Hutchinson, is often colored by a 1774 print by Paul Revere, […]

by Will Monk
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This Week on Dispatches: John E. Happ on Benjamin Franklin and the American Legacy in Paris

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor John E. Happ on the commemorations to Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution that can be seen in Paris. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can […]

by Editors
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Benjamin Franklin and the American Legacy in Paris

France has an extraordinary way of commemorating the glorious past through landmarks and monuments. Benjamin Franklin had been an off and on resident of Paris living at 66 rue Raynouard, the former Hotel de Valentinoise, in Passy. He was recognized as the first official diplomat and Ambassador of the thirteen American colonies. There is a […]

by John E. Happ
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Algernon Sidney and the American Revolution

Algernon Sidney was a seventeenth-century British political theorist, Member of Parliament, and Whig politician who was executed for treason on December 7, 1683, during the reign of Charles II. At his trial, the most incriminating evidence presented by the prosecution was a series of anti-monarchical passages from a seized manuscript of Sidney’s reformist treatise, Discourses […]

by David Otersen
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This Week on Dispatches: Nancy Rubin Stuart on Benjamin Franklin’s Unconventional Marriage to Deborah Read

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews best-selling author and historian Nancy Rubin Stuart on what made Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read’s marriage one of the more unusual among prominent Americans of the Revolutionary era. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]

by Editors
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Charles Thomson and the Delaware

There are many, many founding fathers in the story of America’s Revolution and unfortunately only a few are really known to the general public. Yet without those who are less known, there would have been no revolution. One of those men was the official secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson. He was the sole […]

by James M. Smith
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Benjamin Franklin, Fireman

Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents and titles. He was a printer, writer, scientist, inventor, politician, diplomat, and philosopher, among other things. But did you know he was also a firefighter? In 1736, Franklin helped found the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, one of the first volunteer fire departments in America. He was […]

by Jack Campbell
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Benjamin Franklin’s East Florida Warning

On July 25, 1768, Benjamin Franklin set his friend, Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, straight. Dumas, a man of letters who would later serve as an American diplomat in Europe, was interested in settling British East Florida. Franklin informed Dumas that his home in Philadelphia “being near 1000 Miles from Florida”[1] prevented his intimate acquaintance with that region. […]

by George Kotlik
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Will the Real Caelia Shortface Please Stand Up

Silence Dogood, Anthony Afterwit, Fanny Mournful, Caelia Shortface. Dickens’ characters? No. They’re just a few of the many evocative pen names Benjamin Franklin used to wittily present a controversial or libelous issue or two sides of an argument while remaining anonymous. As a sixteen-year-old apprentice at his brother’s paper, the New England Courant, Franklin was privy […]

by Edna Gabler
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Natural History in Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary America

In the second half of the 1700s, French natural historian Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, formulated what would be dubbed the “New World degeneracy” or the “American degeneracy” theory. His work, Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, included a vast array of facts about natural history from around the world as well as the Count’s many […]

by Matteo Giuliani
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Joseph Galloway’s Plan of Union

Late in September 1774 the Continental Congress was in the middle of an ongoing debate on the means that should be implemented to restore American rights. Most of the discussion was around methods of confrontation with Britain, embargoes, and non-consumption activities, as well as the breaking down of British law and order in the colonies. […]

by James M. Smith
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Justice, Mercy, and Treason: John Marshall’s and Mercy Otis Warren’s Treatments of Benedict Arnold

In the early years of the nineteenth century, the founders of the new American Republic were lurching forward from the shockingly successful outcome of their increasingly remote Revolution, and finding themselves immersed in the uncharted waters of nation-building. The political landscape was inflamed by passionate partisanship and varying, often vituperatively expressed visions of what course […]

by Rand Mirante