Wednesday 29th of May. 6:30pm

Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Director of Benjamin Franklin House will introduce Franklin’s British milieu, those who challenged and sustained him during his long London sojourn.  Fellow members of the Lunar Society like Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and Matthew Bolton, reformed rogues like Sir Francis Dashwood, and artists like the blind organist John Stanley will all feature in this illustrated talk.

£6 per person.

Tickets available via Eventbrite 

Dr Nicholas Cole is a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University, who specialises in the political thought of early America and the creation of America’s political institutions. He leads the Quill Project, an interdisciplinary project which studies the processes of negotiation that created America’s political system. Their flagship project is a digital model of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which provides an opportunity to reassess the importance of Franklin’s role in the creation of the American Federal System.

Wednesday 17 October, 6.30pm

Book your free tickets via eventbrite

Franklin & Grant: Americans Against Slavery

2018 Benjamin Franklin House Robert H. Smith Lecture in American Democracy- Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Director, Benjamin Franklin House 

Franklin and Grant, two American historical figures not traditionally linked, traversed similar paths to fervent antislavery conviction, both of whom left an important imprint on American democracy.

The last public role of 18th century entrepreneur, author, scientist, diplomat and nation builder, Benjamin Franklin, was President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (1789- 1790). Franklin made a trajectory from acceptance to outspoken opponent of slavery by the end of his life. He rallied against abhorrent inhumanity for the enslaved and forecast a terrible toll for the new United States, a prediction borne out by the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Brilliant military general and eventual President, Ulysses S. Grant, traversed similar ground on the question of slavery. Though born into an anti-slavery family, he was initially apathetic, marrying into a slave-holding Southern family, but came to see moral purpose in perhaps his greatest role, as victor in the war that restored the American union.

Dr. Márcia Balisciano, historian and founding director of Benjamin Franklin House, will show the connections between two American leaders who left an indelible mark on modern America.

Thursday 4 October

Tickets to be booked through the Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library

More details to follow