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Ben’s Book Club: ‘Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence’ by Harlow Giles Unger

Wednesday June 9 2021, 5pm BST/12pm ET. Register here. 

Join us for the June instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history. 

This month we will be talking to Harlow Giles Unger about his book ‘Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence’, which chronicles how Thomas Paine became the most widely read political writer of his generation, proving that he was more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now integral elements of modern republican societies. 

An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. 

Harlow Giles Unger is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian. He is the author of 27 books, including 10 biographies of the Founding Fathers—among them, Patrick Henry (Lion of Liberty); James Monroe (The Last Founding Father); the award winning Lafayette; and The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life. 

You can purchase a hardcopy of ‘Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence’ here. 

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date! 

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House. 

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘Past and Prologue’ by Michael D. Hattem

Wednesday July 7th 2021, 5pm BST/12pm ET. Register here. 

Join us for the July instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history. 

This month we will be talking to Michael D. Hattem about his book, ‘Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution’ which illustrates how colonists’ changing understandings of their British and colonial histories shaped the politics of the American Revolution and the origins of American national identity. 

Between the 1760s and 1800s, Americans stopped thinking of the British past as their own history and created a new historical tradition that would form the foundation for what subsequent generations would think of as “American history.” This change was a crucial part of the cultural transformation at the heart of the Revolution by which colonists went from thinking of themselves as British subjects to thinking of themselves as American citizens. Rather than liberating Americans from the past—as many historians have argued—the Revolution actually made the past matter more than ever. Past and Prologue shows how the process of reinterpreting the past played a critical role in the founding of the nation. 

Michael D. Hattem is a historian of early America, with a focus broadly on culture and politics in the long eighteenth century. He is the Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven teachers Institute and the Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools. Previously, he served as Visiting Faculty at The New School in 2017-2018 and as Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Knox College from 2018 to 2020. 

You can purchase a hardcopy of ‘Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution’ here. You can purchase the Kindle edition here. 

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date! 

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House. 

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘Fanny Burney: her life’ by Kate Chisholm

Join us for the May instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history. 

This month we will be talking to Kate Chisholm about her book ‘Fanny Burney: her life’, which tells the story of Fanny Burney, who is best known for her book Evelina, one of the most engaging novels of the eighteenth century. Over the course of her long life, she was also an incomparable diarist, witnessing both the madness of George III and the young Queen Victoria’s coronation.  

Chisholm’s delightful biography, incorporating the latest research and illustrate with unusual portraits and drawings, is lively, funny, shocking, informative and deeply moving; it paints a vivid portrait of a woman of great talent, against the changing background of England and France, a culture and an age. 

Kate Chisholm is the author of three books, including ‘Fanny Burney: her life’, and used to write about radio for the Spectator magazine. She is a former Royal Literary Fund Fellow and Hawthornden Fellow and is currently working on the Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online project (EMCO) and a book inspired by her family’s life in India. 

You can purchase ‘Fanny Burney: Her Life’ here. 

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date! 

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House. 

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘White Fury’ by Christer Petley

 

Join us for the April instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.

This month we spoke to Christer Petley about his book ‘White Fury’, which tells the story of sugar planter Simon Taylor, one of the wealthiest and most influential slaveholders of the eighteenth-century British empire.

Petley uses Taylor’s rich and expressive letters to allow us an intimate glimpse into the aspirations and frustrations of this wealthy and powerful British slaveholder. The letters provide a fascinating insight into the merciless machinery and unpredictable hazards of the Jamaican plantation world; into the ambitions of planters who used the great wealth they extracted from Jamaica to join the ranks of the British elite; and into the impact of wars, revolutions, and fierce political struggles that led, eventually, to the reform of the exploitative slave system that Taylor had helped build . . . and which he defended right up until the last weak scratches of his pen.

‘White Fury’ details the importance of sugar and slavery to the eighteenth-century empire, the rise of the Caribbean planter class, and the struggle over the future of slavery that took place during the Age of Revolution.

Christer Petley is a Professor in History at the University of Southampton. He is a member and former Chair of the UK Society for Caribbean Studies and a member of the Association of Caribbean Historians.

You can purchase a hardcopy of ‘White Fury’ here. You can purchase the Kindle edition here.

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House.

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘Georgian London: Into the Streets’ by Lucy Inglis

Join us for the March instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.

This month we will be talking to Lucy Inglis about her book ‘Georgian London: Into the Streets’, which takes readers on a tour of London’s most formative age – the age of love, sex, intellect, art, great ambition and fantastic ruin.

Travel back to the Georgian years, a time that changed expectations of what life could be. Peek into the gilded drawing rooms of the aristocracy, walk down the quiet avenues of the new middle class, and crouch in the damp doorways of the poor. But watch your wallet – tourists make perfect prey for the thriving community of hawkers, prostitutes and scavengers.

This book is about the Georgians who called London their home, from dukes and artists to rent boys and hot air balloonists meeting dog-nappers and life-models along the way. It investigates the legacies they left us in architecture and art, science and society, and shows the making of the capital millions know and love today.

Lucy Inglis is a historian and novelist, a speaker, and occasionally a television presenter and voice in the radio. She is the creator of the Georgian London blog and her book of the same name was shortlisted for the History Today Longman Prize. ‘City of Halves’, her first novel for young adults, was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Branford Boase award and her second ‘Crow Mountain’ was published in 2015. Her book on the history of opium, ‘Milk of Paradise’, was published in 2019.

You can purchase a hardcopy of ‘Georgian London: Into the Streets’ here. You can purchase the Kindle edition here.

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date!

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House.

Watch the full video below:

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘Tacky’s Revolt’ by Vincent Brown

Join us for the February instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.

This month we will be talking to Vincent Brown about his book ‘Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War’, a gripping account of the largest slave revolt in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world, an uprising that laid bare the interconnectedness of Europe, Africa, and America, shook the foundations of empire, and reshaped ideas of race and popular belonging.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, as European imperial conflicts extended the domain of capitalist agriculture, warring African factions fed their captives to the transatlantic slave trade while masters struggled continuously to keep their restive slaves under the yoke. In this contentious atmosphere, a movement of enslaved West Africans in Jamaica (then called Coromantees) organized to throw off that yoke by violence. Their uprising—which became known as Tacky’s Revolt—featured a style of fighting increasingly familiar today: scattered militias opposing great powers, with fighters hard to distinguish from noncombatants. It was also part of a more extended borderless conflict that spread from Africa to the Americas and across the island. Even after it was put down, the insurgency rumbled throughout the British Empire at a time when slavery seemed the dependable bedrock of its dominion. That certitude would never be the same, nor would the views of black lives, which came to inspire both more fear and more sympathy than before.

Vincent Brown, Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University. He directs the History Design Studio and teaches courses in Atlantic history, African diaspora studies, and the history of slavery in the Americas. Brown is also the author of The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Harvard University Press, 2008), producer of Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, an audiovisual documentary broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens.

You can purchase a hardcopy of ‘Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War’ here. You can purchase the Kindle edition here.

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House.

Watch the full session below:

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘The Fortunes of Francis Barber’ by Michael Bundock

Join us for the January instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.

This month we will be talking to Michael Bundock about his compelling narrative, ‘The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The story of the Jamaican slave who became Samuel Johnson’s heir’, which chronicles a young boy’s journey from the horrors of Jamaican slavery to the heart of London’s literary world, and reveals the unlikely friendship that changed his life.

Francis Barber, born in Jamaica, was brought to London by his owner in 1750 and became a servant in the household of the renowned Dr. Samuel Johnson. Although Barber left London for a time and served in the British navy during the Seven Years’ War, he later returned to Johnson’s employ. A fascinating reversal took place in the relationship between the two men as Johnson’s health declined and the older man came to rely more and more upon his now educated and devoted companion. When Johnson died he left the bulk of his estate to Barber, a generous (and at the time scandalous) legacy, and a testament to the depth of their friendship. There were thousands of black Britons in the eighteenth century, but few accounts of their lives exist. In uncovering Francis Barber’s story, this book not only provides insights into his life and Samuel Johnson’s but also opens a window onto London when slaves had yet to win their freedom.

Michael Bundock is a barrister, a trustee of Dr Johnson’s House and Chair of the Johnson Society of London. He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of English Language and Literature at UCL.

You can purchase a copy of ‘The Fortunes of Francis Barber’ from the online shop at Dr Johnson’s House here. Click here to find out more about this Grade I listed historic town house which was Samuel Johnson’s home. You can support the charity which preserves the house and runs its vibrant education and events programme here.

You can also purchase the Kindle edition of ‘The Fortunes of Francis Barber’ here.

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Virtual Children’s Christmas Fair: Leighton House Museum

Hannah Lund, Assistant Curator at Leighton House Museum will show us how to make paper cranes using origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, to bring us good luck for the coming year.

Although Frederic, Lord Leighton never visited Japan, he was fascinated by the art and culture of this country. He collected lots of beautiful Japanese artworks and objects, like the exquisite golden screen decorated with cranes that he kept in his studio. In Japanese folklore, cranes are said to live for 1,000 years and so are a symbol of a long life, and are thought to bring good luck.

To complete the activity, all you will need are squares of paper – these could be origami paper squares, squares you cut yourself or even sweetie wrappers!

Watch the video below:

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Virtual Children’s Christmas Fair: Arts and Crafts Hammersmith

Arts and Crafts Hammersmith (a collaboration between Emery Walker’s House and the William Morris Society) will show you how to make angel peg dolls based on William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones angel illustrations, tapestries and embroideries.

To complete the activity, you will need: a wooden peg, a sheet of kitchen roll, a glue stick, a pair of scissors, felt tip pens, biro pen or pencil, a helpful adult, printed worksheet

You can download the worksheet here and watch the video below:

 

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Thanksgiving Quiz

Tuesday, November 24 2020, 6pm GMT/1pm EST

Join us for a fun virtual America-themed quiz for Thanksgiving!  Enter as an individual or a team. Winners will receive exclusive Benjamin Franklin House treats.  All proceeds will go toward advancing our mission to bring history and innovation to life at the only surviving Franklin home.

£5 entry – Buy your tickets here