it was much more widely available to a broader audience, but even more importantly, 18th-century science was very much connected with the bottle the experience and knowledge. it was not a theoretical realm. it was very important to a practical knowledge movement, useful knowledge movement that people could see or even experience for themselves the effects of these scientific phenomenon. finally, instrument maker david rittenhouse to stands out as a self-taught instrument maker and astronomer. he built three difficult and very -- beautiful and very complex planetariums. imagine:00 that not only tells you the time and the phases of the known, but it purports to tell you the accurate position of all five visible planets for any given day for in time by 5,000 years or backward by 5,000 years. it really was a wonder, and if -- it did two things that were

important. .. this. >> the american revolutionary project than the birth of the republic

energies were devoted to inventions to improve the quality of colonial life and overcome the numerous obstacles facing the community and expanded scientific horizon. franklin call these people and what is notable is there social origin. drawn from the urban craftsman rather than the ranks of gentleman who tell -- to help dissuade the colonial towns and cities and collectively they ever known as mechanics that we tend to associate with a car mechanic but they came together not only to lew pursues science in general also to agree of its social and economic and political interest. now contemporaries particularly british defying

the mechanics of a practitioner of those were the hand and body are more concerned than the mind and in england the term carried with it residual class prejudice this was very much not the case here in the new world. there is a shortage of skilled labor including all-america so they had a general lack of restrictive regulations a of for example, franklin's father had come from oxford shier with so long line of the silks attires and he was unable to change his profession within the system that in america and he found dying of the silk was not in demand in became the candle and soap maker to be out of those people are free to pursue in the interest to develop new skills and that plays into the notion it to have useful and practical

knowledge is not all the advances our own social positions with that of society. as a result of anyone could aspire to bv entrepreneur with security and accompanying social status and political influence. this movement liz with the puritans and around philadelphia with a large quaker population who would put a premium on labor in the nobility and the dignity of labor so working with someone's hand on this lee was a social good that with the connotations it's not always carry back to europe. said even the journeymen could hope to go into business for himself

partisans' generally live better to make that comfortable provision for a jim their children. 1727 franklin for the leather apron club that was worn by craftsmen and partisans as a collective way to refer to the rising class they called themselves the leather apron club and of course, that was a badge of honor as mechanics and one to read a brief section from my book about their meetings now in philadelphia franklin's own group combined of the private drinking club with the

advantages of a mutual aid society the moral intellectual and improvement of the discussion circle and the altruism of the civic association. members restricted at 12 am proceedings were conducted in secret of the better to add billions the project and facilitate planning and pursue a career in the investment and also protected the group from awkward solicitation from membership for friends and associates. gatherings were held at the tavern on market street one of the oldest drinking establishments with civic life here adytum visitors could find lodging and locals could attend a concert to hold meetings at the masonic lodge another franklin project had some of its earliest meetings there

and then leave the town did be insane british september 1777 was issued from the bar. but for now all they met each week to discuss personal and professional investment of its members as well as the prevailing idiom of science and the language of social improvement'' the rules set by a drop in shows every member should produce query on any morals or politics to be discussed by the company in addition each participant is expected to deliver its original paper every three months. franklin was a very organized% and he rode out queries before each meeting he was to wake up in the morning read the list and think about it and to

hopefully then they could contribute something at the meeting. anything sukkoth blood negative suitable to be communicated we see that civic referring to madison travels or other parts to you think of anything that may be serviceable to mankind? to their country coming friends or themselves? the last question is interesting because while the members were interested in their own investment the leather aprons the pursuit of knowledge was seen as the broader community so the emphasis as a service to mankind was for a reason. so franklin allied the program and drafted queries

but it was not all talk he noted that 1.we must caused so we could drink a glass of wine after all they were meeting in a tavern. of the summer months they gathered outdoors for calisthenics and have their own songs and franklin created a cup of a concert by as many as could harm its. and over time it was a driving force was civic life of philadelphia and it focused on a practical solutions of economic and social problems facing the new class of americans. so was in an incubator of practical solutions. us look at some of them. paper currency pennsylvania in particular suffers of huge shortage of paper currency. this is okay with the political elite because they were creditors and they were concerned that the issuance

of paper money would devalue their outstanding loan interest payment but for a craftsman or a silversmith for a watchmaker or a printer like frank cliff they had to go into debt to buy supplies so to repayed these was difficult he broke one of the best early papers advocating the creation of a paper currency if drought discussions he showed the draft a work of them together and now as the owner of a printing press the to print those which he did. [laughter] so eventually the pennsylvania assembly did override the traditional interest of the leaked -- she the eighth and he benefited they gave franklin the printing press to contract to produce it for pennsylvania if he extended it with new jersey and delaware. he created a fire brigade

and they have a lot of what it houses close together and created the lightning rod particularly for those who did not live in the brick and stone houses distance from their neighbors so they created the basis for the fire brigade and fire insurance. they improved street lighting and cleaning. he tweet the design of the street lamp to make it more e fishing amber brighter the franklin stove. where did that come from? they were debating what they ought to problems. contemporary heating technology with a high price of firewood and they all lived in very smoky houses sold there is the height efficiency so we call the franklin stove he called the pennsylvania stove he never

patented any of his inventions. of. recently very important supreme court cases where dna ruled but in the run-up to that case pat protection was quoting the founding fathers about the importance unless there is a strong record with regard but i think it overlooks that franklin and, jefferson, washington it was a social aspect of knowledge but not the individual right that they would confer on one of ventura. the lightning rod which we associate franklin it is fair enough to do with these her group's efforts and he knew that. the library company of philadelphia to cool members spokes into one collection to span the horizon but had three problems and one was that they'll have the same

books and they did not have that many and they kept forgetting whose books were who's a and in fact, if you read the the gazette of the day there notices saying i lost my copy of john locke edition six, 17 or whenever does anybody have it? so they decided to create the subscription library in that laid the groundwork for a number of subscription libraries mostly run by a mechanic some by labor's with literature and science the most popular books how to do basic mathematics in experiments and laid the

groundwork for one of the great public library systems in the country that they do move very slowly while i am invited to present this but there it is not a tel march march 2014. [laughter] and something else that upset franklin that pennsylvania did not have a college or a university or the institution or academy so they laid the groundwork so the university of pennsylvania had the groundwork started. his efforts on behalf in many respects should be seen as a smashing success with the great institutions of the country but franklin thought it was a failure because they raise money outlined a potential curriculum developed a the marketing plan and raised the money in the main thrust

of the argument is we will create an institution of higher education focusing on practical knowledge latin and greek were put to the side but when the lead the philadelphia manage to take over the board of the trustees they overrode all the plans so it was given the second position and almost a phased out and to his dying day he was extremely bitter about the way the program had been hijacked. so here we have a lovely and not so widely known schilling franklin leading the charge showing the assets of his fellows.

so look at the knowledge society the 18th-century is the age of the limited society of london of course, it is for the improvement of natural knowledge as a primary model for the americas the quaker former together with franklin proposed the first american society in 1743 however it took a number of decades for the ada to truly bear fruit and at 1.franklin rights to a friend to the gentlemen are very title. now bartram blamed it all on the propensity to sit in the tavern and play dice. the example set by a philadelphia spurred a number of imitators it eventually would take hold in washington which is now the national capital, return

to new jersey, albany new york alexandria virginia and of course, carolina and mississippi and kentucky. more specialized knowledge association credited to manufacturers improvement of agriculture to study of natural history even a military philosophy society founded at west point and they all appeared as well. they were local or regional in scope and if you look at the name they almost always have at least a town or city associated very specific the early american in the philosophical society would save the philosophical society for the a transmittal of useful knowledge held in philadelphia in the province of pennsylvania and from our perspective it is silly but it is important to understand with 18th-century thinking knowledge a and its pursuit was a personal

face-to-face experimented had to be done locally and face-to-face through lectures and members needed to live nearby to come to regular meetings this also has the advantage of a broad section to have access to the localized groups so when it was impossible to get together it had very highly directive systems of correspondence chordata by a secretary or other functionary has many will recall that franklin was postmaster. he wanted to be for a couple of reasons but he wanted a good salary and the social status but most of all in that day there recipient paid to the postage is not the center but he could send them and receive them for free.

he wanted to act as a clearinghouse for scientific correspondence and could do this at no cost. said he lobbied very heavily to become postmaster but then he expanded the reach not just the colonial businessmen but his own reach within the scientific system he was developing. one of the greatest obstacles was the entrenched prejudice against colonial science. at the time they would act as a supplier to the raw material in narrative accounts of strange animals or diseases with the boldness of a note critters to steady classification and explanation by the classification of the mother country this would be sent back to science also in this

way with the subsequent transformation so think of iron ore shipped out of virginia goes back to england and actually made into steel and fabricated than shipped back to the colonies at a high markup. this is the essence of the of mercantile system. there is a parallel knowledge that the raw materials were provided by americans but they were not supposed to do science it was done in another country. so as i said it illustrates the phenomenon to provide a valuable context for understanding what a breakthrough benjamin franklin and his colleagues achieved on a remote property outside philadelphia and john into

the life of the group he became an avid collector on behalf of the royal society of london and worked with the swedish botanist and at 1.even the british king. feeder colocynth served as the contact with year for life science and he traveled widely often the beginning his farming duties to fill the endless request for more specimens. i will read briefly from the us chapter devoted to him. >> kyle accounts he bore out remarkably well ranging far and wide with hardships in the wilderness. on the expedition to the souders corporation of new jersey to collect and coke -- frank holmes for the duke he struggled against the elements i climb the trees in the rain and then must

stand up to my knees and the snow to get the cones. on another trip bartrum had painstaking efforts to heat get the only most of the acorns were devoured by the squirrels and dogs. the request was too demanding or darting furnishing muskrats skin or a hornet's nest in native chancing or even life turtle eggs receiving just in time to see one hatch but for the most part they were not particularly interested in what he may think or what first inexperience me tell him that only what he could collect for study and analysis. in fact, he openly discourage the american front and teaching in scientific speculation that the box of seeds came very

safe and in good order my remarks on them are very curious but i do not take up too much time and thought it would not make my correspondence burdensome but to have the same collection once again. from the correspondence they are explicit it is only the opinion of the experts back in europe that carry any weight if he does mrs. bartrum own views of two different varieties of american cedar. the red and the white. until the details could be examined by natural philosophers in oxford, and england half a dozen by way of specimen would be sufficient although you call it white cedar we are in doubt what classical longs to until we see the seed pods. he would regulate for his civil suit his expert

colleagues and give them the latest classification and then return these for his own edification'' send morsi to he requested march 14, 1736, all specimens went to oxford then you shall hear from me. >> by contrast franklin and his colleagues forced the europeans to make room for american science. take a look at what they did. they confirmed the identity of electricity and lightning so the notion that it was produced in the laboratory or lecture halls were one in the same had been kicked around for quite some time it did fact the very french expert had noted that the

spero electrocuted in the lab if you cut them open it resembles the man who was struck by lightning and there were also other science than the small -- the smell sulfur and the snap of electricity from another device but franklin who really made the breakthrough with the practical way to verify the notion. the also gives the plausible capacitor of a glass of water and iron age you could charge that of static electricity then you could release of four experimental purposes they invented a and a name to the battery in

distinguish between negative and positive electrical charge and they set the stage for these developments of the lightning rod. in 1753 the royal society of london awarded franklin the highest honor which is essentially the nobel prize for science and like bartrum and others naturals whose work could be absorbed seamlessly into plant and animal life franklin and his fellow electricians had a true achievement in basic science with a revolutionary theory derived from experimentation. liz says with the classic study represented the most important scientific contribution made by an american in the colonial period now this was a quick

reversal of fortune for franklin in the initial reaction had been dismissed as if and the subsequent findings were laughed at. the french audience varies or undermine dan he refused to believe his eyes overwhelmed by the absurdity there could even be the america is scientist and that this so-called benjamin franklin guy was surely a fictitious creation of his own jealous rival. with a lovely picture here showing just how popular his work with the lightning rod was here protecting mankind from the ravages of lightning and his experiments were carried out

around the world as a japanese woodcutter and this is not the experiment known as the santry box experiment was his first proposal is carried out in iraq before franklin got a chance to try it out if it did not demonstrate the identity of lading and alleges city. and he excelled at the art of correspondence coordinated exchange of information with colleagues across europe and throughout the colonies that today we call social that working and established himself as the chief representative of science with all significant flow of information going through his teens. today he would no doubt be a leading tweeter and blocker with millions of followers in impossible to keep track it hopes to solidify his position to spread his ideas and influence around the world. also to his benefit with a

cause of the american rebellion against the british it made him a formidable diplomats he may be familiar of the book of john adams made into a film franklin is in france the revolution is ongoing trying to get the french do come around with more money and adams is sent over there is serious. he is sleeping late, eager miss meals, drinking wine, going to dinner and out with the rich women and what he did not understand was that franklin was performing a very diplomatic act. how? he was already a scientist with the enormous reputation did france tel couple that with all of the american stage, a wise man and carry the enormous weight through

french public opinion and with the court but i believe he wrote to his wife and said with this is all over people say the history of the revolution in franklin was the of lightning rod in washington was the sword in he met nobody will remember poured john adams. [laughter] thought now to put aside its on the map with a pair of astronomical observations for it to stay there astronomers knew in 1769 the of plan it be this would traverse the sun is a rare but current phenomenon to determine the size of the universe he effectively discrepancies as it moves across it measures the transit time to look dealt

at the solar parallax with them accurate determination of the sun and for the philosophical society that they had dreamed up it now had taken root and begun to function in that transit provided the ideal opportunity to rally around a scientific adventure of global importance as numbers were well aware a successful observation and accurate data could secure for the americans the respect of the skeptical europeans and successful efforts by the philosophical society outside philadelphia to record the trip helped to seal the position of america's premier knowledge it eventually proved to be the most accurate of anywhere worldwide they

lauded the americans and i thank you for the pennsylvania observation is that seemed excellent a complete and do honor to the gentleman who made them. franklin and his collaborators usher in the true knowledge of the revolution that preceded the political rebellion that up ended the established economy of knowledge the leaders -- slated to be found in the declaration of independence seven like to conclude with the brief reading from the end of the first chapter of which i have called the age of franklin. >> bodies of knowledge played no direct role in a practical expression to the widespread idea and attitude that informed first the

colonial rebellion in the creation of a new nation and a new society. when only lead to clear that the interest and experience of the attitudes of the declaration of independence in founding fathers to recognize just how a deeply such notions went to the heart of the american revolution and to in a letter to jefferson and summed up the prevailing sentiments of this generation'' we are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism old europe will have to lean on our shoulders and hobble along our side under the priest and king is as she can. with a final political break america was free to shake off the meddling of the kings to realize the

implicit dreams of a natural order one of harmony and reasons that had been perverted by the imperfect europe. of course, there was a successful revolutionary war of the new nation facing the uncertain future. rest of the institutions of europe and lacking capital and manpower to cut off from traditional markets of the new free and independent states have little recourse of self-reliance and practical study the society for use of knowledge with the imitators and collaborators among those ingenious men of the former colonies pointed the way to the american future. thank you. [applause]

>> we have about 20 minutes for questions so please come to do this microphone put your question in the form of a question after which he will also sign copies of his book. >> in addition to the web site meeting to my website and also talked to my other books as well. questions please. i was not that thorough. [laughter] >> please come to the microphone was the also

successful in the financial sense? how about washington is one of the founding fathers like bill gates of our day? >> of course, washington married into all that many but franklin was extremely successful and it is interesting. the main source there are many biographies a and franklin is a challenge for the cultural commentator because he left behind the unfinished in voluminous work of the autobiography it was written'' in three or four distinct stages a scholarly edition was edited at yale university and even they say it is not accurate he had different motivations

but yet it is the basis of almost all biographies and it is a real problem from what he wants you to and you can see he had different motivations in mind and wrote to over 20 or 30 years and it seems he was riding in for his son as a guide to living well and the moral thing but over time he is a world figure and they like to tell their story so it ships to become one of success however also leaves out very uncomfortable facts about franklin but my answer to your question is he was an extremely astute businessman it did not pat and his inventions but he did realize the way in

academic might write it today but it is the package to be of a successful academic but he realized these are to his benefit of the social benefactor he was president of the board of trustees even though they did not approve of a program that he advocated he was extremely successful has a businessman and it came together but he worked extremely hard and had early setbacks that very quickly was one of the most successful printers in the colony then he would buy pieces of newspapers and by land and harvest the trees and had a paper making interest in the caribbean

and elsewhere in he made so much money that by 1746 he could say i am done and he brought in a partner to be achieved a silent partner in exchange for the annual stipend gave the business over if he writes to his friend in new york state who is also a would-be scientists to sam will devote my life to do science and what i could afford to do before. now he was sidetracked by politics of course, and was deeply involved in representing the colonies of the british court in this is evidence that he hoped he would replace the family at the head of the province of pennsylvania and that he would be appointed and then when that didn't happen that is and he became the firebrand but it is more complicated than that i

think but it is remarkable he was late to the republican party but when he did join he jumped in with both feet and was one of the most radical moves of that generation and had we have that franklin constitution we would have the one-term it executive, and not paid eight unicameral legislature and many other innovations is what they had but then it was rolled back he was a very good businessman and he turned a profit whenever he could but he saw his success tied up with social success that gets back to the notion you don't necessarily patent the things that you develop i think there was a controversy over the last election when obama suggested people who'd get ahead are drawing from other

sources other than their own individuals in the cost controversy in britain would agree 100 percent at the same time very good at making a buck and very quick at a indicted very wealthy man. >> do you draw any parallels between the society of useful knowledge share in the elevator developments? you mentioned at the said with the big industrial plush? >> absolutely. this is the theme that i developed quite a lot of detail franklin's had a lot as society's his last great project was the society for political inquiries formed very late in his life cox was quite a figure a

loyalist and philadelphia and with the brits cave he thought he was on the winning side but that did not work out that he would stay one step ahead of the law because he had high social connections with those two had maintained good connections and also he was so useful am particularly as a publicist and economist so he started to write papers for madison and adams, jefferson he was just too useful to throw into jail as a sympathizer so they let it go. but franklin endorsed him quite heavily and cox was the first to see the useful practical application in the development of american industry. that was a radical idea for people like jefferson but hamilton in particular this

is the beginning of the american machine age so what i would argue is they are the direct outgrowth and beneficiary of the movement of useful knowledge rich was about getting things done. how did edison invent the life paul? he tried every material he could think of that is not theoretical science it is perseverance. that is dumb luck for you get lucky -- luckier 100 other reasons it is not science he tried different elements now this is not to diminish his achievement but to put it context and i go further to suggest the great land grab university again was another expression of affinity for practical solutions and practical

solutions instead of theoretical science but in the mid 18th century americans are interested in practical applications of electricity so even to use psychological problems without any recourse but the europeans try to take this out of the salon out of the haitians the and the electrician to put it in the university come in the laboratory to control so lot -- knowledge goes from a widespread social phenomenon into the tunnel vision institutional experience much earlier than it does in america which then it arrives much later. i draw a straight line from

the secret group fear edison and beyond what. >> i came in 10 minutes late some may be mentioned it why was it the secret group it was a small circular secretive group budget there were 12 members in the other 11 lobbied for expanding its in franklin was really against it and said any junta member can recruit the 11 other members did have a drone junta did you will not share that membership with the original what is that?

the model of the of revolutionary of the latin america of the cell system that is why he insisted to be so secretive i did not figure that out. >> and then is that part of the masonic aspect it and was curious why someone would want to disseminate use of knowledge it doesn't sound like he was protecting privilege so what is that investment? >> i don't know of a the junta but franklin was looking at the most practical way to achieve things but looking a paper currency the study of the population growth of the colonies and the development of the fire brigade of course, the library system

and they're all socially available institutions that grew out of that so it must have been instrumental rather than fundamental how to get things done. >> to questions. do you know, anything of the roots of the democratic republican roots in this country and to what does the franklin institute do today? >> five what we called the republican party is much later but if you read the history there were notions of republican factions of the jeffersonian and hambletonians in the great debate was the future society that they were creating. jefferson for most of his political life realize that perhaps his notion was a

republic of farmers without foreign trade, and no debt, no industrialization that america was so big it could keep expanding to run itself of the agricultural side b-2's sell surplus food and for its own requirements that hamilton would push for the rapid industrialization of america all along the british model to compete with the other nations of england and france and spain in particular so the basic program was to pay off the debt from the war that was crippling to create a centralized currency, the central bank, industrialized developed to trade treaties where jefferson had the bigger vision but he became president and as they tend to do sees the world differently after the war in office it is sharpened his

focus and he wrote to a friend that basically says thanks to the blitz just like satan told adam and eve at a paradise the british have pulled us out of the agrarian model now we have to become the industrial society so you will see jeffersonian and hamiltonian republics with the party that we associate today. a and your second question? >> [inaudible] >> today's business the educational and i go into detail how the association came together. it is very much active as a knowledge society today with his wonderful and prestigious to be appointed

they have a great library collection and sponsors dollars pfiffner and lecture series and in fact, if you read the official injury reshape their own founding to the 1743 proposal to get these talented people of the society really is not that simple so i guess i'll have to straighten them out a little bit when i go there in march. [laughter] >> franklin let the genie out of the bottle but it seemed to be recaptured the next 100 years after that by capital and to university and along came the internet that everybody has knowledge

would frankly a in your opinion before that? >> absolutely. as i mentioned a few minutes ago, just as the americans were trying to test the limits of the knowledge to test without a framework europeans are doing exactly the opposite it was university and space institutions. hall often this era is the age of wonder by the book of the same title but while this is happening, the age of wonder was ending very quickly in europe and science and knowledge was pushed into a bottle the notion was to control knowledge but i see franklin as a result to the extent the internet liberates knowledge and we see the limitations now but with

early promise he would have been a supporter. >> before that was very limited. >> absolutely because any advanced tegea was in the esoteric language he has a wonderful though somewhere that says he would rather have a recipe for parker shaanxi's than any i italian facsimile of a description he really was opposed to the notion that knowledge could be restricted in that was the use of landing creaky and he fought very hard for the english school at the university of pennsylvania. >> off this is the last question. >> day think the think tanks

act like those that franklin was dealing with? >> the land grab institutions was wonderful so the rest of us could go to universities so yes i see it as a direct outgrowth of the knowledge for said they were engaged in and 100 years earlier there was the notion that anyone can do science he does have to be disciplined if he says even a labor if you take away the work that would go to the professional that everyone can play and of course, it is the notion of the democratize system of education that everyone gets the chance so absolutely but where i think this movement has had more deleterious

effects is that the emphasis of the american popular culture against vacating the value -- negativity looking at the pierre science but i thought i would major in greek and latin. [laughter] he would have been so ashamed that i majored in russian in the question i got most often is what are you going to do with that? >> the cold war was booming and there was a lot of things i could do but that is a comic question that you almost get today unless you are studying something very specific. i teach in the liberal arts aspect and divisions of universities and the crisis is how will we get the liberal arts students?

with this book first took shape by then i would be against these developments but i thought it was fundamental of who we are as americans of that is the direction that i took and writing the book was a journey. thank you once again. [applause]

>> host: is great to be here with you barbara perry talking about the kennedys growing up catholic it is a particular brand since for us but i want to start off to ask you as a supreme court scholar and presidential scholar how lew did you get interested in rows? >> guest: i was always interested in the kennedy family was four years old my mother took me to do downtown kentucky if we went downtown to the courthouse in she was completely drawn to the new candidate on the scene in the presidential race, as senator john f. kennedy. >> host: was it because he was catholic? >> guest: i really do also about her age so she was the new generation for the torch

being passed but she really was not that to activate grass-roots it did not even like to you drive down to was very busy streets so it was probably the of catholicism in he was he in some and a good-looking man in she was drawn to that so she got there extra early with me as a four year old and puts us right in front of the podium so we would be sure to see him. >> host: that is great. you do a lot of your research at the jfk library after the open record and tell me about that because that gives you new insight into rows. >> this is solely based on her papers that opened in the fall of 2006 and it is accused story with me finding out about it. i was at the college for many years and had published a book on jacqueline kennedy

my students knew that i was interested in all things kennedy. i was on leave and i got an e-mail from a former student in she said did you see that rose kennedy's papers have just been opened. said i had not so i went right away to the article than decided this has to be my next project in between the supreme court scholarship. >> host: and there were letters from rose to her children and some of them are quite skating i enjoyed the fact she was after john kennedy when he was in office to shape up a little bit how he presented himself and his manners. tell me about those letters. >> first of all, there were 250 archival boxes and i went to another 50 of the family photographs so there

are some rare photographs never been seen before a and i was amazed at the letter writing prodigiously is. [laughter] from the time she was young woman in addition to the 250 boxes of her official papers i came across her lap private letters of the internet held in private collections that i could gather some of those together as well that nobody had written about because nobody had them except the original people to whom she sent the letter said there is at least half a dozen that she wrote to her childhood friend how she wanted to go to wellesley college and all the way through middle-aged to talk about her husband's time in hollywood and even mentions gloria swanson. so these letters that are officially opened at the kennedy library, yes, rose

was a typical victorian mother. always interested in how her children looked and behaved a and their manners and she never gave up until she could literally no longer write to sadly in the latter part of for years to become an invalid through her strokes. . .