AFTERWORD

Chapter 18

Currency Conversions

Overview

This concluding chapter traces how Franklin's reputation has oscillated dramatically across three centuries, reflecting changing cultural values rather than revealing the man himself. From initial reverence to romantic dismissal to modern trivialization, Isaacson examines the persistent tension between those who celebrate Franklin's pragmatic middle-class virtues and those who disdain him as superficial, finally arguing that his legacy—grounded in meritocracy, religious tolerance, and service to the common good—has been profoundly misunderstood by his critics.

Summary

Isaacson frames Franklin as embodying one side of a fundamental American dichotomy: pragmatism over romanticism, religious tolerance over evangelical faith, and social mobility over entrenched hierarchy. In the decades after his death, Franklin's reputation grew as antagonists like William Smith and John Adams offered mellowed reassessments. However, the rise of Romanticism in the early 1800s sparked a profound reversal. Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Carlyle attacked Franklin as pedestrian and commercial; American transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson found him too mundane. D.H. Lawrence's 1923 essay delivered the era's most vicious assault, portraying Franklin as an instrument of suffocating bourgeois morality that imprisoned the soul. Similar critiques from Max Weber, Van Wyck Brooks, and others framed Franklin as the founder of American Babbittry. Yet the Great Depression rekindled appreciation for his virtues of industry and community; pragmatist philosophers and biographers like Carl Van Doren emphasized that Poor Richard's maxims misrepresented Franklin's actual life. By the late 20th century, Franklin had become a self-help icon—Dale Carnegie and Stephen Covey built empires citing his example—while popular culture reduced him to a comic figure in spectacles. Isaacson then defends Franklin against charges of moral shallowness and lack of soul. He notes that critics confused the cultivated character of the Autobiography with the man himself, and that Weber and Lawrence misread Franklin's retirement at 42 and rejection of wealth accumulation as ends in themselves. Isaacson argues that Franklin's true achievement lay in detaching Puritan industriousness from rigid dogma, establishing religious tolerance as a civilizational advance, and laying groundwork for American pragmatism. While Franklin lacked spiritual profundity and deep emotional commitments, his willingness to compromise—grounded in respect for individual dignity—made democracy possible. His unwavering principles centered on opposing arbitrary authority, advancing merit-based social mobility, and faith in common citizens' wisdom. Ultimately, Isaacson contends, Franklin's vision of building a practical, pluralistic nation rooted in middle-class values was both revolutionary and profound, and his legacy—evident in American humor, technological innovation, tolerance, pragmatism, and civic virtue—remains the nation's foundation.

Characters

  • Benjamin FranklinSubject of the chapter's historical assessment; his reputation and legacy are examined across three centuries of changing interpretations
  • Jonathan EdwardsContrasted with Franklin as representing the opposite strand of American character: religious fervor, hierarchy, and ethereal values
  • William SmithFranklin's antagonist in legislature and Academy; gave a respectful memorial eulogy after Franklin's death
  • John AdamsFranklin's occasional opponent who later wrote an anguished reassessment praising Franklin's genius, wit, and talents
  • Gordon WoodHistorian who notes the rise of the middle class and Franklin's embodiment of this shift
  • John KeatsRomantic poet who attacked Franklin as 'full of mean and thrifty maxims' and 'not sublime'
  • Leigh HuntPoet and editor who scorned Franklin's 'scoundrel maxims' and accused him of materialism
  • Thomas CarlyleScottish romantic critic who scorned Franklin as 'the father of all Yankees'
  • Henry David ThoreauAmerican transcendentalist who rejected Franklin's Autobiography when heading to Walden Pond
  • Ralph Waldo EmersonTranscendentalist who praised Franklin's sense but lamented his lack of heroism
  • Edgar Allan PoeAuthor who satirized Franklin-like 'methodical' men in his story 'The Business Man'
  • Herman MelvilleNovelist who depicted Franklin in Israel Potter as a shallow maxim-spouter but later apologized for the one-dimensionality
  • Nathaniel HawthorneAuthor who critiqued Franklin's maxims for focusing narrowly on money and ignoring broader duties
  • D.H. LawrenceEnglish critic whose 1923 essay launched a vicious romantic assault on Franklin as a bourgeois imprisoner of the soul
  • Charles AngoffLiterary historian who called Franklin the 'father of all Kiwanians' and attacked his low-order thinking
  • Frederick Jackson TurnerHistorian who praised Franklin as 'the first great American' embodying common sense
  • William Dean HowellsInfluential editor who championed Franklin despite his cynicism toward ideals
  • Max WeberSociologist who dissected Franklin's work ethic as a philosophy of avarice in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
  • Van Wyck BrooksLiterary critic who placed Franklin as founder of lowbrow American culture
  • William Carlos WilliamsPoet who called Franklin 'our wise prophet of chicanery'
  • Sinclair LewisNovelist who belittled bourgeois values and civic boosterism in Babbitt
  • Dale CarnegieAuthor of How to Win Friends and Influence People who studied Franklin's Autobiography
  • Stephen CoveySelf-help guru who referenced Franklin's system in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
  • H.W. BrandsModern biographer who sympathetically described Franklin's character evolution
  • Edmund S. MorganYale historian who wrote an astute character analysis praising Franklin's wisdom
  • Alan TaylorHistorian who notes Franklin became a figure of fun rather than serious thinker
  • David BrooksSocial commentator who argues Franklin would be at home in modern America but warns against excess Franklinism
  • David HumeFranklin's contemporary who called him America's 'first philosopher'
  • Garry WillsAuthor of Under God who credits Franklin's religious pluralism with making America unique
  • John UpdikeNovelist who notes Franklin remade the Puritan into a zealous bourgeois
  • Henry Steele CommagerHistorian who praised Franklin's merging of Puritan virtues with Enlightenment wisdom
  • Vernon ParringtonCritic whose Main Currents in American Thought dismissed Franklin's civic accomplishments as mundane
  • James CampbellScholar who interprets Franklin's moral thinking as a philosophical defense of service to the common good
  • TurgotFrench statesman who wrote the famous epigram about Franklin snatching lightning and scepters