Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. He also invented bifocals, a stove that is still manufactured, a water-harmonica, and the lightning rod. Franklin's extraordinary range of interests and accomplishments...

This biography chronicles the founding father's life and his multiple careers as a shopkeeper, writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, business strategist, and political leader, while showing how his faith in the wisdom of the common citizen helped to forge an American national identity based on the virtues of its middle class.

"Poor Richard's women describes Deborah's common-law marriage to Ben Franklin and his romances with other women"-- Benjamin Franklin: thrifty inventor, statesman of the Revolutionary era... lover of women. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years. An independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife, she raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint...