When they were little, they were called Benny and Jenny. They were inseparable. But as they grew up, their lives took different paths. Benjamin Franklin left home; his sister Jane Franklin never did. He taught himself to write; she couldn’t spell. He signed the Declaration and the Constitution; she became a wife, mother, and ultimately, a widow.
But they maintained a correspondence throughout their lives, and historian Jill Lepore says Franklin loved no one more than his sister. Lepore shed light on this story at Seattle’s Town Hall on October 9.
This story originally aired on December 12, 2013.