ON BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Episode 3: Industry

Summary

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ON BENJAMIN FRANKLIN – Episode 3: Industry

Podcast: ON CRISPR: The Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter Isaacson
Host: iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
Guests: Walter Isaacson (biographer), Evan Ratliff (co-host)
Released: September 12, 2024

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Overview

This episode delves into Benjamin Franklin’s evolution from a struggling apprentice to America’s first media mogul, and how his relentless drive, business cunning, and civic vision shaped his identity—and by extension, the nation. Walter Isaacson and Evan Ratliff chart Franklin’s rise as a printer, publisher, and postmaster, exploring how his business practices, ethics, and innovations became inseparable from the development of American democracy and the ideal of a robust middle class. Key themes include the intersection of industry and civic life, the tension between competition and community, and how Franklin's early entrepreneurial endeavors planted seeds for the American character.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Franklin's Defense of Free Speech and Printing Ethics

• Free Speech Roots (02:52): Isaacson compares Franklin’s era to current debates over free speech, such as Elon Musk’s stance on Twitter (now X). Franklin, as a young printer, wrote “Apology for Printers,” arguing all voices should be allowed, warning that letting printers censor would limit argument to a single perspective.
  • Quote: “If truth and falsity have fair play, then truth will win out.” – Walter Isaacson (paraphrasing Franklin) [03:31]
  • Franklin later realized lies can travel farther than truth, referencing a saying from Poor Richard.
• Personal Ethics: Franklin refused to print malicious content just for profit, famously testing if he could live on bread and water, deciding “it was better to be proud of what I did.” [04:27]

The Philadelphia Print Shop – Ambition and Innovation

• Franklin Arrives in Philadelphia (06:08): Young and nearly penniless, Franklin starts as an apprentice and soon outshines his employer, Samuel Keemer, due to sheer ambition and social savvy.
• Governor Keith’s Broken Promises (07:00): Franklin’s lesson in resilience and forgiveness: after being tricked with empty promises of printing equipment, he considers Keith’s failure a foible rather than villainy.
  • Quote: “He wished to please everybody, Franklin later said of Keith, and having little to give, he gave expectations.” – Evan Ratliff [07:13]
• Business Acumen and Humor:
  • Recognizes recurring products (almanacs) are key to financial success since “people buy a Bible once, but an almanac every year.” [07:55]
  • Franklin's wit set his publications apart—his lively newspapers and satirical battles with rivals made his media more desirable. [08:31]
  • First to publish a novel in America (“Pamela”), illustrating his knack for knowing what would sell.
  • Created a "best of" almanac (The Way to Wealth), maximizing his intellectual property. [09:33]

Distribution Battles and Early Media Monopolies

• Newspaper Wars and Postal Monopolies (10:06): Franklin’s main rival, Andrew Bradford, was postmaster and could privilege his own papers for distribution. Franklin campaigned for open access, eventually becoming postmaster himself.
  • “[Franklin] says, I’m going to create an open system.” – Walter Isaacson [10:49]
• Relevance Today: Tussles between Franklin and Bradford anticipated modern debates over net neutrality and platform access. [11:39]
• Franklin’s Take on Intellectual Property: He refused to patent inventions or copyright writings, believing in building upon prior wisdom for the collective good. “[Franklin] was not a strong believer in the type of intellectual property we would call copyrights or trademarks or patents.” – Walter Isaacson [12:15]

The Leather Apron Club (Junto) and Middle-Class Values

• Formation and Purpose (13:52): Franklin founds the “Leather Apron Club” to unite tradesmen and artisans—a middle-class association, not for elites. He believed American civic life would be driven by the middle, the “we the middling people.”
  • “That was the heart of who we were going to be as a nation.” – Walter Isaacson [19:46]
• Balancing Civic Good and Self-Interest: Franklin and his club blend mutual aid, civic improvement, and business networking.
  • Quote: “One of the Poor Richard Almanac sayings is about doing well by doing good. And this describes Franklin… he wants to do civic good, but he also knows you can profit by it.” – Walter Isaacson [21:07]
• Innovations via Association: Franklin’s club sparks America’s first lending library, volunteer fire company, and even neighborhood militias, introducing ideas of communal benefit and social self-improvement. [22:19]

The Power of Association and the Democratic Spirit

• Franklin’s Legacy in American Communities:
  • Franklin supported lending libraries, seeing education and self-betterment as key to a mobile, informed middle class. [24:27]
  • Pushed ideas anonymously to let them grow (“it’s amazing how much you can get done if you aren’t interested in taking the credit for it.”) [27:09]
  • Navigated rivalries and built networks by encouraging discussion and playing the “PR man” while sometimes hiding his influence. [27:35]
• Conflict Resolution and Popularity: Franklin resolved many disputes via indirect discussion, but this could also be perceived as evasive, even making enemies among collaborators. John Adams called him “insinuating.” [28:51]

Franklin as Media Tycoon and National Connector

• Owning Content and Distribution (35:13): Franklin’s media vision—control both content (newspapers, almanacs) and distribution (postmaster, print shop franchises).
  • “If you own the content, you own the distribution system, if you have franchises… that becomes the path to make him the most successful self-made business person in America. So it becomes the first great media empire.” – Walter Isaacson [35:13]
• Building a Mailing Network: As Deputy Postmaster, Franklin standardized and unified colonial postal routes, giving him a unique perspective and a hand in fostering a sense of inter-colonial American unity. [36:14, 37:15]

The First Political Cartoon – Symbol of Unity

• ‘Join, or Die’ (38:38):
  • In 1754, Franklin publishes America’s first editorial cartoon: a segmented snake labeled with the colonies and the caption “Join, or Die.” It’s a clarion call for unity during the French and Indian War—later a revolutionary symbol.
  • “That was the first editorial cartoon ever published in America. Ben Franklin wants the colonies to join together in some loose union…” – Walter Isaacson [39:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Free Speech:
  • “If you let the printer decide which would be in or out, you’d only hear the opinion of printers.” – Walter Isaacson (paraphrasing Franklin), [03:07]
• On Leadership by Example:
  • “To try to determine whether I’d publish it or not, I purchased this, a small piece of bread… and realized that I could live that way if I had to. And it was better to be proud of what I did.” – [04:25]
• On Civic Duty & Middle-Class Power:
  • “Market street middle class values was the heart of who we were going to be as a nation” – [19:46]
• On Civic Associations:
  • “He who drinks alone, let him catch his horse alone… it’s not easy to catch a runaway horse unless you have friends helping you.” – Franklin (explained by Isaacson) [23:10]
• On Influence:
  • “It’s amazing how much you can get done if you aren’t interested in taking the credit for it.” – [27:09]
• On Distribution advantage:
  • “He realizes, just as the cable titans of today realize… that becomes the path to make him the most successful self-made business person in America.” – [35:13]
• On Intercolonial Unity:
  • “He would take tours up and down the colonies… it allowed him to see the colonies as potentially one unified country.” – [37:15]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Franklin’s Defense of Free Speech & Print Ethics: [02:52–04:41]
• Early Career & Lessons in Disappointment: [06:08–07:27]
• Launching the Almanac & Business Innovation: [07:55–09:44]
• Postal Monopoly Battles, Platform Openness: [10:06–11:59]
• Intellectual Property & Inventions: [12:15–13:30]
• Leather Apron Club & Civic Associations: [13:52–14:26, 19:32–22:19]
• Public Library, Educational Vision: [24:22–26:53]
• Anonymity in Civic Leadership: [27:09–27:51]
• Conflict and Disputation in the Junto: [28:51–29:47]
• Expanding the Print and Postal Network: [35:06–37:00]
• First Political Cartoon ‘Join, or Die’: [38:38–39:39]

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Episode Tone & Style

The dialogue is lively, narrative-driven, and full of anecdotal color—reflecting Isaacson’s signature knack for turning historical detail into modern insight. Franklin is presented with warmth and wit, his complexities and contradictions openly discussed. Parallels are drawn between colonial America and contemporary tech, media, and civic life, making this history feel urgent and relevant.

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Summary

This episode paints Franklin as both a quintessential self-made man and as a civic innovator whose actions set the groundwork for America’s robust middle class and participatory society. From defending a free press, to using shrewd business tactics, to launching the first lending library and fire department, Franklin’s story in this “industry” phase illustrates his belief that doing well and doing good can—and should—go hand in hand. His approaches to competition, association, and public service resonate in today’s debates about fairness, access, and the balance between individual ambition and collective well-being.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season she's telling her story.

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When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Martial Macel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked.

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Me in the eye and told me.

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I had a calling.

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Surviving meant hiding. Escaping took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred the Many secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[C]

Had 30 agents ready to go with.

[B]

Shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[A]

Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what the hell?

[B]

Basically your stay at home moms were.

[C]

Picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[B]

All you gotta do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

[A]

She was very upset, crying.

[B]

Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

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December 29, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

[A]

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA term.

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Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

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In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kaleidoscope.

[B]

I think about Ben Franklin all the time. I remember being with Elon Musk right when he bought Twitter and he was trying to decide, do you print everything? Is it total free speech? Does it become raucous? Or is there any limits to what you put on it? And I went back to when Ben Franklin was in his early 20s and a printer in Philadelphia and he had A newspaper. He writes apology for printers, which is still one of the best defenses of free speech. He says all voices should be allowed because if you let the printer decide which would be in or out, you'd only hear the opinion of printers. And Franklin said, if truth and falsity have fair play, then truth will win out. But Franklin realizes after a while that's not always the case. Sometimes, as Franklin says in Poor Richard, a lie can make it all the way around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. And he does a test for himself. He had to figure out, when do you refuse to print something you know is salacious or malicious or untrue? And at one point, he was going to get paid, paid to publish something scurrilous. And it was so salacious. And he said, well, is it really worth the money? And to try to determine whether I'd publish it or not, I purchased this, a small piece of bread. I went home and lay on the floor, slept on the floor, ate only bread and water. And I realized that I could live that way if I had to. And it was better to be proud of what I did.

[C]

As a printer, a publisher, and a postmaster, Benjamin Franklin launched America's first great media empire. But that's not exactly how we picture him. For most of us, he's the funny writer or the old guy with a kite, not America's wealthiest self made businessman. But Franklin's ambitious. He devoured any book he could get his hands on, formed clubs to learn from his peers, jousted with his competitors, and constantly innovated, seeking new efficiencies. And while it might be enough to appreciate Franklin for the business savant that he was, what he learned during those years, from the ethical questions he wrestled with to the observations he made while traveling for work, give tremendous insight into the founding father he would become and the democracy he wanted to build. In this third episode of On Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson reveals how Franklin's identity as a printer and businessman led him on a path not just to becoming a revolutionary, but to understanding the shape America's democracy would need to take. Can you walk us through how Ben Franklin created his print operation in Philadelphia? Starting from showing up in the city with a few coins in his pocket.

[B]

When he straggles up Market street bedraggled, he's able to get a job in one of the print shops there. An apprentice. And he works very hard for a sort of ne' er do well printer named Samuel Keemer. And in the end, Franklin becomes much more of the star of the town.

[C]

Partially because he's good at doing his own priority, right?

[B]

But Franklin's ambitious. He's a young printer who knows how to ingratiate himself. And I think Keemer, his boss, becomes quite resentful. But Franklin eventually breaks away to start his own printing shop.

[C]

And you write that it takes a while for him to get going. He's got his own ups and downs. And there's one little anecdote that I wanted to talk about, which is not one of the biggest ones in the book, but it felt like it encapsulated some of that, which is he somehow connects with Governor Keith, governor of the Pennsylvania colony, and he's going to be sent to London to buy printing equipment, to set himself up as a printer. And the governor has promised him this. And then he arrives in London and turns out it was a completely false promise that there was no money to buy the equipment. And he's very sanguine about it. And you write. For Franklin, it was an insight into human foibles rather than evil. He wished to please everybody, Franklin later said of Keith, and having little to give, he gave expectations.

[B]

Franklin looked at a guy like Governor Keith, who had promised him loans and credits. But then he said, well, he was just trying to please me. And I think that ability to say, hey, we shouldn't ascribe deep evil motives to people. We should be tolerant, that becomes ingrained in Franklin.

[C]

So let's talk about his print shop. He's still pretty young when he starts it, going into competition with all these established printers. How does he distinguish himself?

[B]

When he had a print shop, he realized you weren't going to be successful just printing things like the Bible, because people bought a Bible once in their lifetime, maybe or twice. So he realizes an almanac is the way to go. People would have to buy it every year.

[C]

Sensing what people wanted and how to create demand was just one of the ways Franklin distinguished himself as a businessman. Another was his humor. Turns out Franklin's sense of humor wasn't just a natural part of his writing. It was good business, too, giving him a real advantage in the marketplace. Could he have made it if he hadn't been the writer that he was?

[B]

I think being a humorous writer was key to his success because his newspaper becomes more lively than the rivals his almanac. He pokes fun at the other almanac makers. He has poor Richard in the almanac predicting they were going to die. And he gets into these fake rivalries and battles, public battles, where they're poking fun at Each other. But if you're in a jousting battle with Benjamin Franklin poking fun, he's going to win. You know, he's got the more puckish sense of humor. And so in the end, his almanacs were valued more, his newspaper was valued more, and he was smart about publishing. He published novels. Pamela, the first novel published in America. Franklin has a good sense for what the public wants. He's a good salesperson.

[C]

But even with something like Poor Richard, he's always figuring out how to make another product. Like after printing year after year of almanacs, he figures out he can create a best of compilation, right?

[B]

Definitely. And it's called the Way to Wealth, the Sayings of Poor Richard. And it was by far the biggest selling book in the colonies for years.

[C]

But it wasn't just the content that made Franklin wealthy. He was savvy about other parts of the business, too. Striking deals to ensure his newspapers and books got premium placement and distribution. And even that wasn't enough for Franklin. He realized that if he could control the distribution, he could squash the competition. And so he laid the groundwork for a monopoly.

[B]

When Franklin was a printer in Philadelphia, he had a competitor named Andrew Bradford. They competed against each other in many areas, but they also cooperated, just like you might find Apple and Microsoft competing and cooperating. They even published a psalm book together and split the cost. But one thing that really heightened their competition was that Bradford was the postmaster. And that was a great advantage. He got to favor his own content. And so Franklin at first pushes against him and tries to get the postmaster general to order Bradford to carry Franklin's papers as well. But eventually, Franklin's able to wrest away from Bradford the Philadelphia postmastership. And Franklin then says, I'm going to create an open system. And he does that. But then he gets mad at Bradford again. And for a while, he's keeping Bradford from sending things through. But as usual, Franklin gets to the right place. And eventually we have a US Postal system that's a platform for everybody, and it's an open system.

[C]

The thing I love about this story is there's also. If one of them doesn't want to carry the other's papers, there's this sort of backdoor way to make it happen.

[B]

Yeah. What was great is when they would deny each other the right to use the postal system, you could just bribe the writers to do it.

[C]

There's always a side door if you have some cash to hold out.

[B]

Nowadays we wrestle with, should Internet service providers be able to favor certain content or should all content be on a level playing field? It goes back to Franklin and Bradford and Philadelphia. Finally, after a lot of struggle, back and forth, saying, an open system is better.

[C]

Even as Franklin controlled so much of the printing industry, he remained committed to fair play. He believed competition and a marketplace of opinions created a healthier society. And any streaks of ruthlessness always seemed to be tamed by his greater sense of civic duty.

[B]

Franklin did not believe that much in monetizing intellectual property. He never patented or copyrighted anything he did, and he could have done it with some of his writings. He could have said, I'm going to take a copyright out on the sayings of Poor Richard. However, he knew that the sayings of Poor Richard were things that he had taken from previous writers in the past two or three centuries who had said clever things, and Franklin might polish them up a bit. And so he was not a strong believer in the type of intellectual property that we would call copyrights or trademarks or patents.

[C]

I feel like we should say he was really good at making money. I mean, he did very well for himself.

[B]

He was very successful as a printer and a publisher, and he always looked after his interests, you know, making sure he got the contract to do the paper currency and that his newspaper advocated for paper currency. On the other hand, he doesn't take out patents on his scientific inventions. He said, we all benefit from things that went before us. We should put these into the commons. Whether it's the Franklin stove or the lightning rod.

[C]

It really is fascinating. Like, on the one hand, he's quickly on a path to being incredibly wealthy, and he's doing all these innovative and sometimes cutthroat business things, like taking over the post office and trying to stamp out his competition. And then he's always so civic minded. He's always thinking about the middle class. It's almost at the core of his identity.

[B]

Right when he gets to Philadelphia and he becomes a tradesman, he creates what's called the Leather Apron Club, or the Junto. And it doesn't try to replicate the clubs for the very rich aristocratic elite of Philadelphia. It's just supposed to be for the tradesmen, the artisans, the shopkeepers, what he called we the middling people. That's why it was called a Leather Apron Club. They put on leather aprons in the morning and open up their shop. And he felt that the civic life of America would be driven by a middle class.

[C]

When we come back, we dive into the revolutionary impact of the Leather Apron Club and the surprising ways its legacy still lives on Today.

[A]

All I know is what I've been.

[B]

Told and that to half truth is a whole lie.

[A]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

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I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

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We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

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Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

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My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[C]

I did not know her and I.

[B]

Did not kill her or rape or.

[C]

Burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. They literally made me say that I.

[A]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[C]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[A]

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[C]

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[A]

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.

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This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret the Many Secrets of Marcia Almasiel as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get her podcasts.

[A]

In early 1988, federal agents race to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[C]

We had 30 agents ready to go.

[B]

With shotguns and rifles and you name.

[A]

It, but what they find is not what they expected.

[B]

Basically, your Stay at home, moms were.

[C]

Picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[B]

They go, is this your daughter? I said, yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years.

[A]

Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray.

[B]

Once I saw the gun, I tried.

[C]

To take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

[A]

Listen to the Chinatown sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It may look different, but Native culture is very alive. My name is Nicole Garcia, and on Burn Sage Burn Bridges, we aim to explore that culture. It was a huge honor to become a television writer because it does feel oddly like very traditional. It feels like Bob Dylan going electric, that this is something we've been doing for like hundreds of years. You carry with you a sense of purpose and confidence. That's Sierra Teller Ornelas, who, with Rutherford Falls, became the first Native showrunner in television history. On the podcast Burn Sage Burn Bridges, we explore her story along with other Native stories, such as the creation of the first Native Comic Con or the importance of reservation basketball. Every day, Native people are striving to keep traditions alive while navigating the the modern world, influencing and bringing our culture into the mainstream. Listen to Burn Sage Burn bridges on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[C]

People might have a vision of a printer or newspaperman today, a publisher and who they are and where they came from, but this was like a real blue collar job then. Could you explain that and what Franklin means when he describes himself as a.

[B]

Leather apron man, Benjamin Franklin, throughout his life would sign his name B. Franklin, comma printer. And it was because he believed that being a leather apron, meaning somebody who owned a shop, opened up in the morning, served people that Market street middle class values was the heart of who we were going to be as a nation. Rather than trying to create the class system in England and the pretensions of the elite and the aristocracy. And so that notion of a printer as a shopkeeper and publisher was something he always had a pride in. Now this was something rather new. In England, you had had an aristocracy and a working class, and so. But there wasn't a prosperous, vibrant middle class. And Franklin knew that a strong America would come from having a thriving class of small business owners.

[C]

So the Leather Apron Club banded together in this new model to do good in the community, partially out of a sense of moral righteousness, but also out of Practicality, the members knew that their businesses all had a better shot of success if the city was thriving, if the streets were clean, and if the people had money in their pockets to spend.

[B]

One of the poor. Richard Almanac sayings is about doing well by doing good. And this describes Franklin, which is, he wants to do civic good, but he also knows you can profit by it. When you start with his, he put it, little things like keeping the streets swept. He said, it might seem like a minor thing that some dust may get in somebody's eye, but if you multiply that to the whole community, you see why we all have to work together. And so what his Junto, or Leather Apron Club does is at every meeting they talk about what is it that a fellow member of the club might need and might help him in business? What ways can we help the commerce of Philadelphia? What new ideas might we profit from? And so he was always mixing his civic virtue with doing well by himself, like making sure that the other members of the Leather Apron Club used him as a printer. So they form all sorts of ideas and associations. To have a volunteer street sweeping corps, to have a volunteer fire department.

[C]

And people now maybe have a hard time conceptualizing the era where some of the things that he came up with didn't already exist. For instance, you've mentioned the volunteer firefighting or even the militias that he'd helped set up prior to him coming up with them. Like what was happening around a fire before Franklin set up one of these associations.

[B]

Well, you had people who either paid for protection or people would pay for constable watches and stuff. But what he realizes is, especially with fires, but even with crime, that you can't just have certain people protect their own homes. The whole community has to pull together to do it. A fire on one home in Milk street hurts every home on Milk Street. And so there are things we have to join together to do. One of the essences of democracy is figuring out what should be done in the commons, what should be done by government, what should be left to the private sphere. And this notion that we gather together in civic associations, it so perplexed Tocqueville when he writes about democracy in America. He says Americans are the most individualistic people, and yet somehow they keep forming associations, and this is in conflict. But for Benjamin Franklin, it wasn't in conflict at all. As poor Richard said, he who drinks alone let him catch his horse alone, which means it's not easy to catch a runaway horse unless you have friends helping you do it. And so that notion of governing Ourselves through civic associations, and then eventually of public private partnerships with local government, and then later on colonial and national government. That becomes a new concept of how we were going to create an America that celebrated both self reliance as well as community and civic association.

[C]

And also the lending library was a big part of it. What role did that play?

[B]

Among the things a Leather Apron Club does is it creates the first sort of public library where they all agreed in the club to put their books together so other people could borrow them. And soon they have a room that they rent. And it becomes a way, as Franklin puts it, that the average tradesperson in America, the average shopkeeper, could be just as well informed as, just as educated as some of the elite or aristocracy. One of the amusing things Franklin figured out when he is starting his library is that he asked one of the wealthier, privileged people of Philadelphia who didn't particularly like the young striving Benjamin Franklin, if he could borrow a particular book. And he borrows it and then returns it and is very grateful for it and talks about how influential the book is. And after that, the person he borrowed the book from loves Benjamin Franklin. And Franklin says, what I learned is sometimes when you allow a person to do you a favor, they will like you more than if you're doing favors for them.

[C]

I love that lesson. And you describe these things coming together, beginning in these clubs. If we create this library, people can teach themselves, they can educate themselves, which is exactly what someone would do after being denied the opportunity to go to Harvard.

[B]

He extends that to the Academy for the Education of Youth that becomes the University of Pennsylvania. Both Franklin and Jefferson are exemplars of the Enlightenment. But Jefferson, when he creates a university that becomes the University of Virginia, talks about taking the most elite thinkers and bringing them into a new quote, natural aristocracy. Franklin, when he creates what becomes the University of Pennsylvania, believes the goal is to take all people, no matter how brilliant they are or just industrious they are, and say everybody will benefit from learning that education should not just be for the well born and for the elite, but it should become something that every striving person in America had a right to go borrow a book from a library or to be part of an academy for the education of youth.

[C]

For someone who joked about struggling with humility and whose name ended up on so many things, from the Franklin stove to the $100 bill, Franklin loved to play with anonymity in his writing, and he did it too, in his work with the Leather Apron Club.

[B]

Whenever he proposed a civic association, he might write a letter to the newspaper. But he said he was always very careful to make it not sound like it was his suggestion. In fact, sometimes he would write letters to his newspaper under a pseudonym and say, it's been proposed that maybe we should have a volunteer fire department. He said, it's amazing how much you can get done if you aren't interested in taking the credit for it.

[C]

He also didn't seem to see any contradiction between being this sort of PR man for himself, building up his image so that he could use his image, and also being the person who slid these ideas in underneath the door so that other people would think they were theirs.

[B]

One of his clever insights is, if you don't take credit for something, if you give somebody else the credit for an idea, it'll later become known that you were really the person who came up with it. It'll give you a lot more benefit to your reputation.

[C]

While the Leather Apron Club was all about banding together with other shopkeepers to help one another in the city of Philadelphia, for Franklin it was also about helping himself and the bottom line, the whole doing well by doing good maxim. But Franklin's affect and his way of encouraging conversation sometimes made people question his intentions. You sort of write that for a man of his fame, he didn't have as many disputes as you might expect. He was able to resolve a lot of them. But he does start having these conflicts with other printers and eventually with the Penn family. And how does he sort of navigate when he feels like someone is arrayed.

[B]

Against him in his Leather Apron Club, they had a way of discussing things that he felt would stop it from being too disputatious. Like if you disagreed with somebody, instead of contradicting them, you'd ask questions that made Franklin charming at times. But after a while, this indirectness, slyly asking questions in order to get his point across, he ends up alienating people who think he's not a forthright, principled person. John Adams called him insinuating. And so even though he's extraordinarily popular, he's able to rub people the wrong way sometimes and make enemies of the people he went into business with.

[C]

But for all his flaws, Franklin was still a uniter, someone who had an incredible ability to bring people of differing persuasions together. When we returned from break, we learned how Franklin's business trips up and down the east coast gave him a unique perspective on the colonies and how a little cartoon he published quickly became a call to arms.

[A]

All I know is what I've been.

[B]

Told and That's a half truth is a whole lie.

[A]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[B]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[A]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[C]

I did not know her and I.

[B]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[C]

That y' all said. They literally made me say that I.

[A]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[C]

They made me say that I poured.

[B]

Gas on her.

[A]

From Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[C]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[A]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[C]

At 19, Elena Zada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[A]

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's the story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.

[C]

This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred the Many Secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[C]

We had 30 agents ready to go.

[B]

With shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[A]

But what they find is not what they expected.

[B]

Basically, your stay at home moms were.

[C]

Picking up These large amounts of heroin.

[B]

They go, is this your daughter? I said, yes. They go, oh, you may not see her, her for like 25 years.

[A]

Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray.

[B]

Once I saw the gun, I tried.

[C]

To take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

[A]

Listen to the Chinatown sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It may look different, but Native culture is very alive. My name is Nicole Garcia, and on Burn Sage, Burn Bridges, we aim to explore that culture. It was a huge honor to become a television writer because it does feel oddly like very traditional. It feels like Bob Dylan going electric, that this is something we've been doing for like hundreds of years. You carry with you a, a sense of purpose and confidence. That's Sierra Teller Ornelas, who, with Rutherford Falls, became the first Native showrunner in television history. On the podcast Burn Sage Burn Bridges, we explore her story along with other Native stories, such as the creation of the first Native Comic Con or the importance of reservation basketball. Every day, Native people are striving to keep traditions alive while navigating, navigating the modern world, influencing and bringing our culture into the mainstream. Listen to Burn Sage, Burn bridges on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[C]

I want to talk a little bit about why Benjamin Franklin is so fixated on becoming Postmaster General. Why is it so key to his business empire?

[B]

Once Franklin has the most successful content, he and the printing house, he also pushes and becomes the postmaster. He realizes, just as the cable titans of today realize that if you own the content, you own the distribution system, if you have franchises, if you are able to do the printing and the publishing, that becomes the path to make him the most successful self made business person in America. So it becomes the first great media empire.

[C]

In 1748, at the age of 42, Franklin retires from daily life at the printing shop. But he definitely doesn't stop working. Instead, he hangs up his leather apron to concentrate on grander ambitions further afield from Market Street. Some of those include the scientific experiments we heard about earlier. But in 1753, Frank he also gets to work building a smarter postal system as Postmaster General.

[B]

Before he became a deputy Colonial postmaster, if you wanted to send a letter from Philadelphia to Boston, it often had to travel all the way to London and back. But he created a postal road. He was able to franchise print shops up and down the coast with his former workers or his cousins, sets him up in the printing business, shares the poor Richard's Almanac in the news with him and helps them become postmasters and then ties them all together. And then he traveled up and down the coast, both looking in on the print shops that he had franchised, but also making sure that each postal stop connected and that the postmasters and colonial postal system worked. And it gave him a unique perspective.

[C]

His love of travel and his desire to sort of get out into the world and escape the provincialism of wherever he was. How did that sort of shape his early views of how America could form?

[B]

Franklin becomes the most traveled person in colonial America. He would take tours up and down the colonies as postmaster. Partly it helped his business, but most important, it allowed him to see the colonies as potentially one unified country. So he's at the forefront of this notion of union. Up until then, the Virginians had very little in common with people from Massachusetts or even Pennsylvania. But he was very sociable. So he would go into each town, from Charleston up to Boston, and he would make friends. And it helped him form what he eventually created as an American philosophical society, which is people up and down the coast who exchange correspond respondents about scientific ideas. But it also helped him establish a notion of a unified country with common interests.

[C]

Even after he gave up his daily work as a printer, Ben Franklin kept a hand in the press. So if he ever felt a need, it was easy to get something into print. In 1754, early into his stint as deputy postmaster general, and in the early months of the French and Indian War, he used that perch to make a bold statement, one that would change the course of American history. Can you describe the join together or die cartoon?

[B]

The different colonies were not working together on things like a common defense and the French and Indian War. And so he drew a picture of a snake that was cut into 13 segments for each of the colonies. And it just said under it, join or die. Without being put together, without holding together, it will die. And he's saying the colonies should form a union.

[C]

I just love the idea of a political cartoon, of a single image being so influential.

[B]

That was the first editorial cartoon ever published in America. It's supposed to advocate for a position. Ben Franklin wants the colonies to join together in some loose union, to be able to assert their own rights as colonies and also fight off the threats from the French and Indian wars. And this notion of a colonial unity becomes important to him.

[C]

In the next episode, we watch Franklin's evolution from someone merely suggesting the colonies should unite to a full fledged revolutionary. And we witness how this decision tears his family apart from everybody's wondering what.

[B]

Side is he going to be on? Is he gonna remain a loyalist to the crown or be on the side of revolution? And before he can announce it, he has to have a meeting with his son William.

[C]

That's next time on Benjamin Franklin. This show is based on the writing and research of Walter Isaacson. It's hosted by me, Evan Ratliff, Producer, mixed in sound design by Anna Rubinova. Adam Bozarth is our consulting producer. Lizzie Jacobs is our editor. Social Media by Dara Potts. The show is engineered at CDM Sound Studios from iHeart Podcast. The executive producers are Katrina Norvell and Ally Perry. For Kaleidoscope, it was executive produced by Mangesha Tigador with an assist from Oz Volition, Costas Linos and Kate Osborne. Special thanks to Amanda Urban, Bob Pittman, Connell Byrne, Will Pearson, Nikki Etor, Kerry Lieberman, Nathan Otosky and Ali Gavin. And if you like podcasts about inventions, what they mean for humanity, check out my other show, Shell Game about how it created an AI clone and set it loose on the world. It's at Shellgame Co. And for more shows from Kaleidoscope, be sure to visit Kaleidoscope NYC. Thanks so much for listening.

[A]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[B]

Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[A]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[C]

Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alayna Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.

[A]

When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almaser, the leader of the Legionaries, looked.

[C]

Me in the eye and told me.

[A]

I had a calling.

[C]

Surviving meant hiding. Escaping took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marcial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[B]

Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[A]

Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what the hell?

[B]

Basically, your stay at home moms were.

[C]

Picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[B]

All you gotta do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

[A]

She was very upset, crying.

[B]

Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

[A]

Listen to the Chinatown sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

[B]

December 29, 1975.

[C]

LaGuardia Airport.

[A]

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorist. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.