Much less has been written about Franklin’s younger and favorite sister, Jane, born with all the same disadvantages, and further hampered by contemporary beliefs that women should neither be educated nor have the means of earning their own living. Like a stereotypical good woman of her time, she was modest and humble and would probably be extremely puzzled that the great Jill Lepore should bother to tell her story in Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.
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Lepore makes excellent use of her scanty resources. There is a lot, she admits, about Jane Franklin that needs to be conjectured, or even imagined, based on more-general knowledge of women’s lives in the 18th century, but many of her guesses are plausible. There is still a lot about this particular life, though, that remains unexplained.
