LHS Presents: "The Franklin Stove: an Unintended American Revolution"In-Person

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, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. 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: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill. 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 - a device that, by modifying how heat and…