Franklin fascinating in author's portrayal
A Harvard-educated Bostonian, Wood now lives in Providence, R.I., where he teaches American history at prestigious Brown University. He is prolific, but his most important academic work may be "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," which won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1991.
Now in his 70s, Wood is on the verge of becoming professor emeritus — but the books will keep coming.
Of this latest work, Wood said that he read Franklin's papers in the 1970s and was struck by them. "It was not the Franklin I knew — the American patriot," he said by phone from Providence. "He was critical of America, absorbed in England and parochial. Other scholars don't realize how close he came to remaining a Brit. If he had been offered a position in the British political hierarchy, America would have lost him."
Wood "stewed" about Franklin for several years, he said, finally incorporating some of his ideas into his book on the American Revolution. "Franklin was constantly aware of what people would think. He wanted to appear to be the right kind of man — like Dale Carnegie (author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People") in a way. He shrewdly promoted projects other people could take credit for.
Wood is unforgiving of Franklin for the shabby way in which he treated his wife, Deborah. "Their early letters were affectionate, but the later ones became perfunctory. He lost feeling for her as a wife. She had become his business agent in Philadelphia, while he lived in London. She was emotionally cut off.
"When she writes and asks him to come home, he doesn't respond to the letters. Franklin and Deborah spent the last 17 years of their marriage apart. He didn't need to divorce her. When he married her, he already had an illegitimate son, William, and Deborah was probably the only girl in Philadelphia who would take him."
Wood has seen no evidence for the popular thesis that Franklin was a "womanizer," but he was a "lusty" young man. Franklin considered the house of Mrs. Stevenson, and her daughter Polly, his home in London. They became his "surrogate family," and Franklin evidently preferred their company to that of his wife and his own daughter, Sally.
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