Book of Ages

This biography excavates the forgotten life of Jane Franklin Mecom, Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, using her scant surviving writings to reconstruct an 18th-century woman's experience. Lepore masterfully contrasts Jane's world of poverty, childbirth, and domestic struggle with her brother's celebrated public life, offering a ground-level view of history far from the halls of power. The book is a poignant archival detective story that pieces together a voice nearly lost to time, revealing the stark limitations and quiet resilience that defined most women's lives during the American Revolution.

What makes this historical account so compelling is its fundamental re-framing of the founding era, shifting the focus from famous documents to a single, humble "book of ages" where Jane recorded her children's births and deaths. Readers interested in social history, women's studies, and the human cost of nation-building will find a profoundly moving narrative here. Lepore doesn't just recover a life; she challenges us to reconsider what stories we value and who gets to be remembered, delivering a powerful corrective to the traditional, male-dominated founding myth.