The Spectral Summit

Send us Fan Mail Benjamin Franklin published fourteen Silence Dogood essays in the New-England Courant in 1722, slipping them under the print shop door so his brother James wouldn't know who wrote them. It's the first case of a founding father not only trolling his brother but also catfishing when James developed an affection for Silence.   By Essay Nine, Silence had found her footing —...

Send us Fan Mail Join us as we explore the wit and dark humor of Dorothy Parker who is best remembered for her razor wit. "The Telephone Call" which originally appeared in the January 1928 issue of The Bookman, is one of her most psychologically raw interior monologues — strips away the wit entirely, leaving a woman in agony over a phone that won't ring. It's Parker at her most...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our exploration of The Raven , The Tell-Tale Heart , and Annabel Lee — three of Edgar Allan Poe’s most haunting and enduring works.  In this episode, Kelley discusses the meaning while Max reads three of Poe's classics.  In these pieces, Poe invites us to travel through the darker corners of the human mind. The Raven captures the torment of grief and obsession, as...

Send us Fan Mail In this essay, teen Ben Franklin addresses the importance of Freedom of Speech after his brother James is arrested by the authorities in New England for "Publishing too freely." While his brother is in jail, Ben the apprentice, who was not allowed to publish under his own name, uses his outrage as Silence Dogood to reference an article in the London Journal that addresse...

Send us Fan Mail In this essay, in which Teen Ben Franklin trolls his brother James, Silence Dogood  features a real poem ( An Elegy upon the much Lamented Death of Mrs. Mehitable Kitel ) and dryly praises it as "the most Extraordinary Piece that ever was written in New-England." Ben Franklin then famously includes a satirical recipe for writing a terrible colonial elegy. He instructs re...

Send us Fan Mail Having moved from the countryside to Boston for the summer, Mrs. Dogood sets her sights on one of colonial society's most despised flaws: pride. Franklin crafts a sharp and funny meditation on vanity, describing how pride blinds people to their own faults while making them hyper-critical of others. You have to wonder what Silence would think of today's influencer culture...

Send us Fan Mail In this installment, Teen Ben Franklin uses Silence to push back against a male critic - in today's world, we might call him part of the manosphere- when he suggests that she should criticize women for being lazy before turning her ire to men.  Silence turns the tables and shows that men are just as guilty of pride and idleness and are often the cause of a woman's faults...

Send us Fan Mail In Federalist No. 70, Alexander Hamilton argues for a strong, energetic, and single executive (unitary executive) to lead the U.S. government, rather than a council. He asserts that a single president provides necessary accountability, quick decision-making, and secrecy, ensuring effective governance, protecting national security, and upholding the rule of law.   Kelley and Max br...

Send us Fan Mail What does a 16-year-old writing under a fake name have to say about college education — and why does it still sting? In 1722, Benjamin Franklin's fictional widow Silence Dogood took aim at Harvard and the parents who sent unprepared students there, not for wisdom, but for status. Through a vivid dream sequence, Dogood walks listeners into the "Temple of Learning" —...

Send us Fan Mail This is 16-year-old Ben Franklin's third essay as his alter-ego Silence Dogood, a middle-aged widow who has some strong opinions about the world around her.  In this shorter but important piece, Silence formally lays out her purpose and promises her readers what they can expect going forward. She acknowledges her civic duty to contribute to society and vows to share the knowl...

Send us Fan Mail In her second letter, Silence Dogood looks back on her childhood — and takes aim at colonial education. Writing as a reflective widow, Benjamin Franklin critiques the limits placed on young minds, especially girls, in early eighteenth-century Boston. Silence describes her brief schooling, her love of books, and the ways formal education often failed to nurture curiosity or charact...

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode,  Kelley explains how sixteen-year-old Benjamin Franklin couldn’t get his writing published — so he invented a widow. In the first Silence Dogood essay, Franklin secretly introduces a witty fictional voice that captivated readers of The New-England Courant and launched his career in satire. It's a founding teen's look at colonial Boston, and his alt...