School of Humans. Oh hello, filth heads. Hope you all had a great New Year if you're someone who you know, subscribes to calendars in the passage of time. But also, I don't want to force that on anyone if you're like not into that. And I think it's the New Year, so we should start off with a bang.
So who's better than bang in? Then Benjamin Franklin.
That's right, we finally made it to old Benny boy and Benjamin Franklin.
You know him? But do you do?
You do we really know the founders? Also, does it even matter what they actually thought? Because we spend so much time interpretating, interpretating, interpreting who they were and what they were trying to do.
That we forget that other things were happening.
But you know what, I am just going to succumb yet again to the historical kind of I guess basic bitchness of talking about Benjamin Franklin.
For today's episode.
And I realized that I was actually kind of confused about him, which that's annoying. I thought he was like fucking around all the time, you know, and like had sex with a thousand French women as Flynn.
But it might have not been that many.
And also maybe it wasn't that at all, like some historians suggests that maybe he just liked the flirt and he didn't consummate that many of his relationships.
You know, he wrote a lot.
He wrote a lot of letters and essays and diaries and autobiographies and stuff.
That's the thing.
Maybe don't give a man a printing press, he's just gonna abuse it. And it definitely seems out with a lot of the stuff he wrote, he wrote it with the intention of someone wanting to read it, you know. And he never like explicitly was like me and these French broads be fucking oh.
Moste Franklin, we are not actually fucking.
I'm sorry, this accidents offensive all stop. Some historians argue that when he was like in France, he was older, so maybe he wasn't able to fuck as much, you know, And this Franklin biographer Paul Zahl described him as a foxy grandpa. He's like, yeah, he was just an old guy who liked to flirt, right, And sure, you could look at him as an old guy who liked to flirt. I mean you could also look at him as a serial sexual harasser. But whether or not, he was literally
fucking people. It does seem that throughout his life he was.
Horny af.
Like I'm postulating that maybe he invented the lightning rod so he could like shock his balls or something, you know, my balls. In his widely popular autobiography, he does talk about his youthful self and being sexually provocative. He said, quote, this hard to be governed passion of my youth hurried me frequently into intrigue with such low women as spell in my way.
Ps. I hate when low women fall in my way. It's so annoying.
I might get out of the way low women anyway, these low women, which were attended with some expense and inconvenience, beside a continual risk to my health by a distemper, which of all things I dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it. Basically, he's being like when I was young, I engaged with some prostitutes, and few I did not get syphilists.
I am one lucky dog.
But also I don't appreciate how he's painting himself as a victim here, like, Oh.
No, the low women, they fell in my way.
It was expensive and inconvenient, There was nothing I could do but have sex with them. But really, do you guys know what Benny Franklin was most horny for. He was horny for his work.
That's right.
He loved doing his job and writing stuff. You know, what are women compared to books and government? Yes that's a modified Jane Austen quote. Whatever, But obviously I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about Benjamin, about Benny boy, because while some people choose to remember Benjamin Franklin as this foxy grandpa haha, he he Benjamin Franklin actually had a wife and in my humble opinion, he treated her like absolute dog shit. So that's what
we're talking about today, someone who rarely gets mentioned. I feel like when you hear about Benjamin Franklin, we're talking about his relationship with his wife. Here's a theme song. This is American Filth. I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode bread crumbing Benjamin Franklin. You guys might be like, what the fuck does the title of this episode mean? Okay,
so I think we're all familiar with ghosting. You know, it's where someone just erases their existence, stops responding to you after you've set some sort of precedent of connection with them. You know, they just don't show up, don't text back. I always like to personally assume they are dead, and then if I ever see them in public again, I fall to the floor weeping, wailing to God for this great miracle that they're still alive. Anyway, I'm a
great person to know. But there's this other thing. It's called bread crumbing, where someone doesn't try to just ghost you, but basically they just like keep making promises to hang out, but.
Then they never do.
You know. It's like people who hold on to you and are relying on your emotional availability, but then they never fall through with it.
That's bread crumbing.
Okay, Now, imagine if someone did that to you, where someone kept promising to hang out but then never did. But instead of just doing this over a few weeks or months, it happened over the course of ten years, and the person doing it to you being like, yeah, I'll come back, I'll hang out soon. Is your husband, and your husband is Benjamin Franklin. That would suck, right, Well, that's exactly what he did. That's what annoys me. About him, but we're gonna get to that at the end of
the episode. I also just don't think he treated her very well in general. So let's start kind of at the beginning of their love story, I suppose. So his wife was named Deborah Reid and Bennie Boy he called her Debbie, and technically they weren't actually married, but they lived as a married couple. It was essentially a common law marriage, so as you can surmise, the way that they got together.
Was a bit topsy turvy.
When Benny Boy was a younger dude about seventeen years old in seventeen twenty three, he was living in Philadelphia, you know, basically the Silicon Valley of the seventeen twenties because it had all of this hot tech, for example, the printing press. And the story goes, according to his autobiography, that one day he was walking around carrying some lobes of bread, one under each arm armpit bread, and then
chomping down on a third. Debbie, a young lady, was standing outside her home's doorway on Marcus Street when she saw him, and she thought he looked so silly and weird but also endearing. It's like he's carrying all that bread and just like chomping down on one.
That's so silly.
She was, like, Benjamin Franklin, you have a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. But through a series of events, Benjamin Franklin actually became a border at Debbie's house and stayed there for about six months. And while he was there, they fell in love. Is that convenient just to have a boyfriend in your house? But the thing is, when Benny Boy proposed marriage in seventeen twenty four, Debbie's mom wouldn't let them get married because A he didn't seem very financially responsible.
You know, he was basically a gig worker.
And b he had recently been recruited by Pennsylvania's governor to go to London to run a printing house there. Anyway, Benny Boy left Philadelphia boohoo, and he and Debbie decide to postpone any short of marriage plans. But then while Benny Boy was in London, he realized that the Pennsylvanian government had basically swindled him. There's actually no equipment waiting for him in London so that he could run a printing house, and he also had no money for a
return ticket. So Benny sent Debbie a letter basically breaking up with her, because at that point he had no plans to return to Philadelphia, and also he probably realized that her mom would not let them get married anyway, so instead of getting dumped, he was being proactive by being the dumper. Also, you know, he was still in his youth, horned up, ready to go, and he did tell someone later that he had actually just mostly forgotten about his engagement to Debbie when he had reached London.
And Debbie was probably very sad about this whole situation.
She always seemed to be a little bit more into Benjamin than he was into her. But also her mom was trying to look out for her best interest. You know, She's like, if you marry Benjamin Franklin, you're gonna be poor. Look at him, he's dumb, and obviously his situation improves. But at the time, so instead, Debbie's mom persuaded her to marry a potter named John Rogers, because that's a more stable job a seramacist.
But John turned out to be a piece of shit nutjob.
It turned out that he was actually already married to someone in England, and then he spent all of Debbie's dowry and then fled to the West Indies, where presumably he died. But the problem is that it was too expensive to try to prove that he was dead, so
unfortunately Debbie had to stay married to that rat. Technically women could self divorce at this point, but the church wouldn't allow another marriage, and without him actually being declared dead, she couldn't be a free and fun and thirty widow. And that's why I never trust a man who's into pottery.
Anyway.
Benny Boy came back to Philadelphia in seventeen twenty six, and despite being tricked by the governor, he returned with lots of prospects and fortune ahead. He had a lot of good printing work in his future and newspapers to make.
When he got back.
He did see Debbie from time to time in social situations, but she was so embarrassed about her potter husband that she rarely went out and did social activities.
Benny was like, damn, I.
Feel bad for her and everything she's gone through, but also she tried to dump.
Me boo Debbie. But aha, Debbie.
Would not be the only one who committed a folly or two. So remember how Bennie Boy mentioned in his autobiography that he was really horny when he was young, Well, it seems like he was so horny that he accidentally fathered a son.
Whoopsies.
He either met a low woman or another lady and made a kummi wami inside of her and made a baby.
Whoopsies.
But Benny he decided to be a nice guy, and when the baby boy was born, he took the child to raise. He was like, I shall raise his son as a proper good boy. And to this day no one knows who the mother was and why you know he couldn't marry her and be with her. But the thing is, Benjamin Franklin taking the kid. That was a rare, unprecedented act for its time. Usually they would just leave the bastards behind. But the thing is, then Benny Boy was a bit in a predicament because he was like,
I cannot raise a child on my own. I am important and I am a man. That would be ridiculous. I need some lady to raise this child. But what good lady in her right mind would raise someone else's child. I would need a woman who has no other prospects, whose dowry has been squandered by someone else who died in the West Indies and someone who likes me enough to raise my bastard. Oh my god, how convenient, I'll
ask sad ass Debbie. So, even though Debbie couldn't technically get married, she and Bennie Boy agreed to a common law marriage. On September first, seventeen thirty, she moved into his house and became the mother to his bastard, who, by the way, also had a name.
His name was William. And the thing is Bennie and Debbie.
They had a very long marriage, and it does seem that for much of the marriage they had a perfectly fine relationship. But at the same time it doesn't seem that Bennie was actually that into her sexually. They did have two kids together, a boy named Francis who died of smallpox at a very young age, and then after Francis died, they had Sarah. But Bennie Boy described Debbie pretty disparagingly in a lot of his letters. For example, he compared her body to a beer mug. I mean,
not the hottest form, I guess. And then there's this account of one of Benjamin Franklin's friends coming over, and Debbie was like on the floor wailing and yelling at.
Him, Fuck you, Benjamin Franklin.
So obviously it was not a perfectly harmonious situation in their household. I mean, also, being a woman at the time probably sucked because you just had to raise children and shit, which sounds boring as fuck, no offense. I mean, on the one hand, this marriage was awesome for Debbie, she didn't really have any other choice, but also it seems that she got a little stressed out because of
Benjamin Franklin. But we know from Benjamin Franklin's perspective that the marriage was good for him because it tempered his horned upness. He wrote a very silly essay in the form of a letter in seventeen forty seven called a Letter on Marriage. Another title of this essay is Advice to a young Man on the choice of a Mistress. It's basically addressing a man who is not interested in getting married, and the gist of it is Franklin is trying to be like, no, marriage is good, you gotta do it.
But he says, if you don't get married and you still want to.
Fuck around, I really recommend you get a mistress who is older than you. That's right, Find you a cougar, find you a milf, because they are better mistresses. And I wanted to share some of this essay in the episode because yeah, it's a satire, Yeah it's comedy, but I feel like there's probably some truth about how Benjamin Franklin felt about marriage in it. And I'm not actually
gonna read the letter myself, okay. One reviewer of this show said, I sound like a nervous twelve year old boy giving a book report in an aggressive monotone, which, while you might think it's a criticism, is actually just accurate. So I'm getting my boyfriend to read it. Yeah, sorry, boys and girls, I have a boyfriend. Okay, I need you to sound like you are Benjamin Franklin.
Can you do it? I'm Benjamin. No, that's too much. Just read the fucking letter.
Thing, my dear friend. I know of no medicine fit to diminish the violence natural inclinations you mention, and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against entering into it at present appear to me not well founded.
The circumstantial advantages you have in view by postponing it are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being separate. She wants his force of body and strength of reason, he her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would
have in that state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry and your profession with her good economy will be a fortune sufficient.
Okay, so that's the wife part of the essay. The next part is the milf part, which is and it's not really necessary for this episode, but I will have my boyfriend read the rest of it at the end of the episode because it's very funny. But the annoying thing about this marriage part is that he says that marriage will make you more successful in the world. He says, it makes you a more complete human. You know, together
you will succeed in the world. But in the later part of their marriage, Benjamin Franklin basically leaves Debbie all alone for two decades.
Okay, we'll be right back after these soothing advertisements.
So in seventeen thirty six, Debor Reid and Benjamin Franklin's son, Francis, died of smallpox, which is surprising because Benjamin Franklin was a huge proponent of this new thing called inoculation, Like, why had he not inoculated his son if he was so into it. Some people think that maybe Francis was already sick as fuck by the time they could have
inoculated him. But some other people think that maybe Debbie prevented it from happening, and then Benjamin Franklin held that against her for the rest of their marriage and over decades of being married. Maybe this resentment and bitterness built up until he just didn't really want to have much to do with her, Or maybe he was just I don't know, too preoccupied with the us being independent or whatever the fuck.
I don't know.
I can't go back in time. I can't ask him. So basically, for two decades, starting in the seventeen fifties, Benjamin Franklin spent most of his time in England, and while he was there, Debbie was not. In his defense, Benny Boy had asked Debbie to come along to London, but she refused. She was terrified of the ocean and traveling by boat. I mean, why would you not. The
bottom of the ocean is heinous. I mean they didn't even know what it looked like back then, but Debbie maybe got a sense about all those creepy things at the bottom. So he headed over there in seventeen fifty seven, and that's when all the bread crumbing began. So when he left, he was like, yeah, I'll be home soon. But then he didn't come back for five years. Then he was home for a little bit, and then he left again, and then he wasn't back for what ten years,
And here's the pattern that would happen. He would send letters and he'd be like, oh, yeah, I'll be back in a few months. I'll be back at the end of spring. And then spring would come around and then he'd be like, well, just kidding, maybe I'll come back at the end of fall or something, or maybe I'll come back in the winter, but actually now the ocean it's too cold. I don't want to go now, so
maybe next year. And he kept doing this. Also just seems that Benjamin Franklin wasn't really communicating.
With Debbie very well.
Like the second time he was over in London, the one where he'd be gone for ten years, Debbie sent him a letter where she said, oh, I have been so happy as to receive several of your dear letters within these few days. She said that she had been reading it over and over again and quote, I call it a husband's love letter, but really she might have been saying that to be a bit manipulative. She was like, Oh, my god, that's so nice of you to write me.
How nice of you to remember that I exist, the woman who bore two of your children and also raised your friggin bastard. What a kindness that you would deign to write to me. Also, when you left back in February, you said you'd be gone a few months, and now it's freaking October and you're not telling me when you're gonna come back. And here's the crazier thing about this, so he kept doing that thing where he was like, yeah, I'll come back with then he wouldn't.
But the thing is, do you know what happened?
In seventeen sixty nine, Debbie had a stroke, and even after that, Benjamin Franklin did not come home.
She kept asking him.
She was like, Babe, I'm sorry to bother you, but when might you perchance be coming home?
I had a stroke, kay almost.
Died And at this point, even after her fucking stroke, he was just ignoring her. He didn't offer her any clarity on when he would come back until July seventeen seventy one. He was basically like, yeah, I'll be here for one more winter and then I'll come home. But then, guess what, he postponed it again, and then many more times, and then it was seventeen seventy four, and that year again twice he said he'd return and didn't.
And then in.
December of seventeen seventy four, Debbie had another.
Stroke and she died.
So yeah, basically there was like a five year period in which she had a stroke, he didn't come back, and then she had a stroke and died, and yeah, sure, during this time there was a lot of important shit going down, like a revolution was about to start. But whatever,
I still don't like it. Fuck you, Benjamin Franklin. And can you guys believe that that even after she died, Benjamin Franklin, her husband, he didn't feel compelled to immediately come home, you know, to like go to Philadelphia and help with funeral stuff and say goodbye to her before she was.
Put in the ground. No, no, no, no.
He didn't come back to Philadelphia until the following year, May seventeen seventy five, at which point the American Revolution was already happening. So it's just like men are so predictable, you know. It's like I'm not going to come home and tend to my sick wife, but I will come home for war. Men love war more than women, don't you dare dissect that statement.
And here's the thing.
I can't imagine the stress Debbie was under just waiting for her husband, just like being in this sort of like limbo where you're like, well, you're coming back, I'm preparing the house, I'm preparing everything for your return, and then he just doesn't arrive, and also doesn't communicate about him not arriving that sounds so stressful, and you know it causes a stroke high blood pressure, and where do you get high blood pressure from.
Being stressed out?
So, yeah, Benjamin Franklin killed his wife. And yeah, sure, me saying that Benjamin Franklin killed his wife that is some revisionist history, or some people would say wild conjecture and absolutely incorrect, but whatever, I'm standing by my hyperbolic statements. So yeah, guys, that is why I am pissed off at Benjamin Franklin. I know you guys were wondering the New Year how I felt about him, and that's how I feel.
P PW.
I put in these cannon sounds because this is a big moment for everyone learning my opinion on Benjamin Franklin. So cannons, so I know, promise the rest of the marriage letter, where Benjamin Franklin talks about how if you're gonna get a mistress, it's better to have a milf.
I'm tagging my boyfriend back into read it.
But just remember earlier in the letter he was like, blah blah blah, you should get married.
Why would you not, you idiot?
But if you don't, Okay, now we're doing the next part of the letter, So start right there.
But if you will not tag me Noah.
But if you will not take this council and persist in thinking of commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former advice that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones. You call this a paradox, and demand my reasons. They are these. One because as they have more knowledge of the world, and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is
more improving and more lastingly agreeable. Two because when women cease to be handsome, they study to be good to maintain their influence over men. They supply the diminution of beauty and augmentation of utility. They learn to do a thousand services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable, and hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is
not a good woman. Three because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience. Four Because through more experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation
and with regard to theirs. If the affairs should happen to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his health and fortune among mercenary prostitutes. Five, Because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the
highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled, then the neck, then the breast, in arms, the lower parts continuing to last as plump as ever so that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark, all cats are gray, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior, every knack, being by practice capable of improvement.
Six.
Because the sin is less, the debauching of virgin may be her ruined and make her for life unhappy. Seven because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections, none of which can attend the making an old woman happy. Eighthly, and lastly, they are so grateful, but still I advise you to marry directly, being sincerely your affectionate friend.
As the older woman in our relationship, Is this how you think of me?
Yes?
Ah to cover me with a basket. Anyway, dear filth heads, please remember that this is a comedy podcast and me saying Benjamin Franklin killed his wife is crazy. But like Debbie, I have also been at the whim of men who kept promising to hang out but then never did, and it drove me insane.
So I'm taking all this very personally.
Also, I did include several real facts throughout this episode. Anyway, I'm gonna try to compose myself. Not all the episodes are gonna be like this. I swear to God, I was just passionate. So in American filth we always learn something from the episode. There's always a moral to take away from it, and you know, to counter my bias, I will try to say something from ben Jamin Franklin's perspective. From his point of view, be empathetic to him. So what I think we learned from this episode is that
wives are so fucking annoying. Why would you pester me when I'm thinking about war and stuff?
Leave me alone? Yuck. Anyway, let's roll the credits.
American Field is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. This episode was written and hosted by Me Gabby Watts. The theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger. Senior producers Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. Please leave the show a review, follow it, give it some stars, whatever, make the algorithm work so we can keep making the show. And you can also follow the pod on Instagram at American filth Pod.
Pocket you next week School of Humans