Author Talk: The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution with Joyce E. Chaplin

Dr. Joyce E. Chaplin is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. In her book, she details how the biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era’s most iconic consumer products. It was more than just a material object, however - it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. And he conceived of his invention as equal parts appliance and scientific instrument. With his stove, Franklin became America’s first climate scientist. As the story of the Franklin stove shows, it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis. Joyce E. Chaplin is a Professor of Early American History at Ha