Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity

by Michael Meyer

The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin’s parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia—a deathbed wager that captures the Founder’s American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age. Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall.  In  Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet , Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin’s wager was misused, neglected, and contested—but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin’s stake in the “leather-apron” class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Audiobook, Business, American History, Biography Memoir

368 pages, Hardcover

Published April 12, 2022

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Meyer is an American travel writer and the author of In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China and The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed. He graduated from University of Wisconsin–Madison. He first went to China in 1995 with the Peace Corps. Following Peace Corps, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied writing under Adam Hochschild and Maxine Hong Kingston.

His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Smithsonian, the New York Times Book Review, the Financial Times, Reader’s Digest, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Iowa Review, and on This American Life.

In China, he has represented the National Geographic Society’s Center for Sustainable Destinations, training China’s UNESCO World Heritage Site managers in preservation practices.

He lives in Singapore and Pittsburgh, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, teaching Nonfiction writing.

After a five year clearance delay, his book The Last Days of Old Beijing was published in mainland China.

Reviews

[Len Knighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Truman and John Adams died almost three years ago and, with his death, the throne of king of American historians was empty. A few superb writers have been considered the heirs to the top prize but no proclamation has been made. After reading Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, I have thought that perhaps the search need not venture beyond the boundaries of McCullough’s home town. Teaching at the University of Pittsburgh is the gifted author Michael Meyer, fifty-three, an historian who could wear McCullough’s crown far beyond my lifetime.
Meyer wrote repeatedly in this book, “Every generation discovers Benjamin Franklin for themselves.” I dare say some of the Baby Boomers, of which I am one, may have learned more about Franklin watching a two-part television presentation of Bewitched, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, than in their secondary school classrooms. Speaking of bets, it is a good bet that virtually none of us learned anything about Franklin’s bet while in school unless we grew up in Boston or Philadelphia, and even then it is a long shot.
Reviewing objectively, I struggled with some of this book. I am not a math geek (some of my friends would be surprised to read that) nor am I interested in high finance, banking, etc., although I do watch the Dow’s downs and ups. I have a limited retirement portfolio and I pay someone to pay attention to it.
What I did read that inspired my praise of Meyer in the opening paragraphs was how the author, like McCullough, could take a subject that is likely not the focus of dinner party conversation and, by telling stories about people we never heard of, make Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet a book we would heartily recommend.

Highlights

I wonder how many people yearn for the good old days when people, politicians included, were civil to each other. No day has ever existed. The final pages in chapter five show the vitriol of Presidents, a prequel of Donald Trump. Had I written this 130 years ago I could have been arrested as Ben Franklin’s grandson was.
Page 106

A short paragraph on page 218 tells of the public’s rejection of the classic novel Moby Dick and of its elevated status thanks to the anti-Franklin writing of D.H. Lawrence. Reading this gave me a sense of vindication as I had given the book a low rating and a negative review on Goodreads.

Page 219
Franklin’s daily plan.

At my current stage of life I am thinking more about a legacy than an extraordinary feat. Franklin’s last bet left us with a legacy that has benefitted millions of people, whether they know it or not. I think all of us would love to leave our children, grandchildren, society a legacy like that.

Four stars waxing

[Marty Mangold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book would be fine as a first book on Franklin, because the author starts from not knowing much about him, and touches meaningfully on every fundamental facet of Franklin that I can think of. He goes on to cover his topic very well.

Most Franklin fans are not particularly interested in what happened to his bequests, though I remember one of the evaluators at the 1990 commemoration of Franklin's passing, and arriving late from the private conference of what was then the focus of a firestorm and falling asleep immediately. The entire room sympathized with him, out of reverence for his stature, and sympathy for the task of deciding what to do with the money Franklin left Philadelphia.

The author goes deeper, surmising that Franklin's bequests, geared to working-class tradesmen starting businesses, might have been a counterpoint to the other Founders, perceiving the divide already in place in America between those that wanted to accumulate wealth and those that already enjoyed it.

This is a terrific book - a good discussion of Franklin dealing with the same issues confronting us now, and enjoying the richness of this amazing person. HIghly recommended, whether it's your first book on Franklin or the latest of many.

p.s.: I've heard good things about the C-SPAN radio interview with the author, and I enjoyed the book-launch webcast by the American Philosophical Society.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book; it has an interesting yet niche subject. Even if you already knew about Franklin's bequest, there was a lot of stuff to learn. In some ways I find myself with contradictory desires — I think this book could have way less detail, or it could have way more detail. There was a bunch of stuff in here where I was like, "OK this is just minor trivia about what was happening with Franklin's money" and other stuff where I thought it would be nice to go down random rabbit holes and see all the knock-on effects of Franklin's bequest.

I found it interesting to be reading this soon after having read the essay The Base Rate of Longtermism is Bad , which (among other things) makes the case that Franklin's long-term bet was one of the least consequential things he did for the long-term future. His short-term oriented work all had a much bigger impact on the future. That essay does not even account for the fact that Franklin had somewhat specific ways that he wanted the money to be invested in the meantime, and almost immediately the world changed in such a way that in order to profitably invest the money you had to effectively ignore his will. Kind of reminds me of the Nobel Prizes, which are supposed to be given to those who have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind in the preceding year, but are almost always given in recognition of major world-changing efforts undertaken over many years or decades.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasant surprise - I checked it out with my mess of Ben Franklin books, not really paying attention to it specifically. Then, when it turned out to not really be a Ben Franklin biography, I was going to return it. But I started reading it and got caught up in it right away. I also remembered hearing a story on NPR about this book last year, and thinking at the time that it sounded interesting.
There were a couple things that I liked here. This is really less a book about Franklin's life, and more about his afterlife (which obviously, the other Franklin books tend to ignore). Meyer goes into detail about what happened to his children and grandchildren, and that was stuff that I never knew. Like, I knew he had a falling out with the loyalist son, but I didn't know that Franklin's daughter went over and lived in London for a few years after he died, and reconnected with her brother. I also didn't realize that decades later the grandson, Temple, actually pulled himself together and got to work on his grandpa's papers.
Mainly though, this is about how Franklin left a few thousand dollars each to Boston and Philadelphia in his will, with complicated stipulations about how the fund should be lent to tradesmen for like two hundred years and then, swelled hugely by interest, spent on civic improvements. Meyer did a great job tracking this money over the centuries, trying to figure out who got the loans, who was in charge, etc. It's funny - you would almost think that the whole thing was Ben's joke. He must have known that there would be epic battles two hundred years after his death about who would get the money. Sometimes in that part of the book, the battles get a bit confusing, but I appreciate Meyer following through all the ins and outs of the debate. It also makes me really happy that the money lives on, through a technical college in Boston and the Franklin Institute in Philly (where my son just enjoyed a delightful field trip). This whole crazy plan for Franklin's money to still be relevant centuries later actually worked. It is kind of awesome.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I knew about Franklin's gift after he died was (I thought...incorrectly it turns out) that he gave Philadelphia some money to sit in a bank account and accumulate interest until 200 years later when the city could pull it out and marvel at the wonders of compound interest.

The truth is much more fascinating.

First, he gave money to Boston AND Philadelphia (to create a rivalry of sorts). Second, the money wasn't meant to sit in a bank account earning interest. It was meant to be leant out to startup business owners specifically in "the trades" - i.e. blue collar work only.

Over the course of history as various money managers and city officials did well and didn't do well at managing things, they did make a number of loans and then, after a while, decided to just invest the money in bonds and savings accounts.

The money was meant to be, simultaneously, a bet on the fact that America would endure as a country and that craftsmen and tradesmen would be the engine of economic growth and prosperity in the nation he helped build.

The cities did end up getting a big payment down the line after many twists and turns. And the more I learn about the founders, the more I marvel.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, well researched book about two bequests that Benjamin Franklin left to aspiring tradesmen in his beloved Philadelphia and Boston ($200o pounds to each city) to be given in the form of loans to help them start their own businesses over the course of 200 years (from 1791 to 1991), with the remaining sum (predicted to be in the low millions of dollars) to given to worthy public projects in each city/state. I enjoyed the historical bits about his youth and long, distinguished career (although probably much of it would be familiar to most people who learned about him in school in the US). However, the book would have benefited from a more linear story with some trimming, as the author kept jumping forward and backwards in the narrative. For example, in 1801, 10 years after Franklin's death, we are treated to several pages of someone who investigated the status of the fund (E.g., he met BF as a kid, and then in 1765 he did X, then later he did Y in 1810, etc.). And then in 1891 (100 years after his death), there is more back tracking to events that occurred in the the 1700s, etc. It would been interesting to follow how the funds ebbed and flowed between the 2 cities over the years, but was very hard to find that information (due to the non-linear flow).

[Sarah Bodaly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating and covered an aspect of history that I had never heard of before, and yet it also gave just enough information about his life as a whole to sum up the man for those who might not know much about him, but was not too long-winded on his life facts, since that wasn't the goal of this book. The perfect fascinating balance!
In his later life, Benjamin Franklin bequeathed the two cities of Boston and Philadelphia a large inheritance, with several provisions. Compound interest and the wonders of increasing funds fascinated him, and he had a dream for what these two cities could do, in terms of public improvements, with a “simple” gift. Benjamin Franklin “wagered” against his own use of his money, that the cities could do more with the gift of two thousand pounds than he could. In a story that could slightly mimic that of the biblical servants and talents, one city invested their money much wiser than the other, and thus had a greater amount with which to draw from. I won’t tell you which one; you’ll have to read it for yourselves.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Meyer tackles the story of Franklin's "Last Bet' - that by giving 1000 pounds to each of Philadelphia and Boston he could support the trades class which he believed were the core of active citizenry. There were stipulations in the will regarding who could get loans, and what happened after 100 years. Each City moved ahead differently - neither perfectly following the terms of the Will. In Boston, a period of less lending but professional money management is one of the things that boosted the pool of funds well above that of Philadelphia. Boston's Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, a tech and trades school focused on in-demand jobs, was a beneficiary of these funds and continues to pursue the core goal today.

There is a lot of history here in the form of embedded context along the way, but it is quite readable. It was also interesting to read for the changing perspective on Benjamin Franklin over the generations.

[Paul Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

So apparently, every generation discovers Franklin for themselves.

Good book. I had never heard of the bequest, and it was both interesting and disappointing how the management of the funds didn’t follow his request, or rather the spirit of his request, that the money be used to start tradesmen in their craft. Yes, the apprentice-based system changed, but I’m sure a better method than investing the money in life insurance could have been found? At least the school got the lions share, and that at least for the spirit.

I was also quite interested in the circumstances surrounding his death. I hadn’t heard of some of that, particularly how badly some of his contemporaries thought of him. I knew John Adams had little use for his, but the others surprised me.

All in all, I enjoyed it, and am glad I picked it up.

[FanZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I benefited from Benjamin Franklin - he founded the school that I was fortunate to attend. Because of this connection, his life story has fascinated me. This book documents a rarely known last action of his legendary life, where he set up "microcredits" to help American workers in two cities that he loved (Philadelphia and Boston). The funds lasted generations and impacted residents of these two cities in different and often insignificant ways. Still, his vision of enabling American workers runs true even in today's world, where we suffer from a broken supply chain and lack of American manufacturing. American prosperity and economic security rely on these key factors. We need visionary leaders like Frankin to guide us through this difficult time.

[Byron Snapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is more of a biography about Franklin than about the funds he donated to Boston and Philadelphia. Most biographies of Franklin don't talk much about his will and this one obviously focuses a lot more on that, but it is still more about Franklin than it is about the legacy and history of these two funds.

Overall the book was fine, but wasn't what I expected based on how it was marketed. I was expecting a much shorter summary of Franklin's life and much more details on the history of these funds. It also seemed to jump around a bit too much and look for any excuse to insert one of the Benjamin Franklin Aphorisms into the text as often as possible.

[Miguel A. Yague · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good reading to learn about Franklin’s biography, and understand the depth of his vision on personal development, entrepreneurship and government, among other issues.

Before this book I was unaware of his will, and the gift he made to future generations of Bostonians and Phillies.

The details on how the trusts were managed for 200 years can be of more or less interest, depending on the reader’s motives, but definitely demonstrates the thorough investigation made by the author.

For all non-fiction readers, this book presents good food for thought on the above mentioned timeless affairs.

[John Noll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Start to finish, this is a fantastic book to read! I took my time reading this because it was just so good. The research the author did was exceptional; you can feel the attention to detail emanating from the smallest of sentences that might have taken hours or days to find. The notes section at the end of the book is extensive, and for good reason. The author appears to not have left any stone unturned in their pursuit of getting every bit of information correct.

I took away so many things from this book and want to read the authors other books, despite not having a deep interest in the subject matter. I highly recommend reading this book!

[Kathy Hale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book about a legacy of money that Benn Franklin left to the cities of Philadelphia and Boston to encourage young tradesmen to pursue careers. Eve n though the author leaned a little heavily on the Boston aspect of the fund, it was astonishing how these miserly men did not give the allotments to this purpose. The two cities even fought over what to do with the money once it was turned over to them for public good. The book also gives a little history of Franklin and his world at the time.

[Mandy Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this during the election. I loved this book... it made me feel re-moralized as someone who works for herself. This is an awful age in which to do so, yet I persist. Benjamin Franklin's final gifts are a tale of hope and treachery. I long for the days when our elite earners built libraries and museums and wanted to be immortal. I know those times can come again.

I was impressed with how well these funds were managed and I appreciate and understand the world of money a little better, especially after digging into the references and reading more about finance.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good overview of Ben’s life but it was so much more than that. He went against the conventions of his time and left money to the city of Boston and to Philadelphia to be given to those in the trades who needed help starting their businesses. He firmly believed these working jobs and those who have those jobs are the backbone of the young USA. He said the program would last 200 years.
The author follows this money and its effect on the culture and education of these two cities.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Franklin's final bout of philanthropy -- 1,000 pounds to Boston and Philadelphia to support young tradesmen -- makes for an inspired and interesting tale. Along the way, Meyer makes many valuable observations about Franklin's progressive attitudes about religion, citizenship, the environment, income distribution, politics and much more. And among the many Poor Richard gems, gotta love this one outta the blue: "He that lives upn Hope dies farting."

[Dick Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, the author provides nice personal history on Franklin and also excellent summaries of the 200 year trusts created by Franklin's will. The reader will probably be saddened to see the high level of greed, and often poor practices of the trustees of the trusts, but an excellent story of far reaching, and far sighted, philanthropy.

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity was an interesting book. Mr. Franklin has always been on my list of dead people in history that I’d love to meet. Here is yet another example of why he's on that list. I'd love to observe firsthand how his mind worked.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding book. Easy to read. So many interconnected topics. And a side of Franklin that's not talked about much - philanthropy and a 200-year trust he had in his will.

Highly recommend it to anyone.

[Brian Weisz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always been fascinated by compounding, and a little sorry that I can't live 200 years to see what happens. But Franklin had the 200 year idea anyway. It makes me want to leave a bunch of money in a trust just to give my descendants a tangible object lesson in the power of compound interest.

[Goodies4]

I’m not a fan of nonfiction (read this for book club), but I found this incredibly dry. Okay, maybe the first third of the book was entertaining. I thought it would have made an excellent in-depth magazine article….

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new view of Benjamin Franklin and his plan following his death to aid artisans with loans to be paid back and to sponsor new business plus his life at the end and how his descendants took his plans .

[Linda Gaines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting facts about Franklin and his "penny saved is a penny earned". He designated his savings for assisting people with schooling to train for good wage employment. Philadelphia and Boston vied for control of his monetary legacy.

[Krista · Rating 5 out of 5]

If a greater understanding of this nation's founding, its characters, and realities of the culture and politics is of any interest this is a great insight. Listened via audiobook, and just loved it.

[Chandler Elmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the initial layout of the concept, I found myself just wanting to hear the result, and not really caring about how the money was mismanaged in the beginning. With that said, you can tell that there was a lot of research done to make this the most accurate book it could be.

[Andrew Degruccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I left with a renewed appreciation for Benjamin Franklin. I think this is a different perspective of the legacy of the man. A good read.

[David R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some egregious and disappointing errors (hint: always check surprising statements that aren't supported by citations) lead me to question other contentions.

[jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately a wide-ranging and rewarding read. Nevertheless, the book muddled through a mass of sometimes confusing detail when comparing how Philadelphia and Boston utilized Franklin's gift.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A side of Franklin which had a few surprises, even for this BenHead.