PhilosopherJay

If we are looking for a modern example of a mythological or fictional character who was accepted by historians as a real person in modern times, Polly Baker is perhaps the best example.

In April, 1747, a British newspaper, "The General Advertiser," published a speech by a woman named Polly Baker made while on trial in Connecticut for giving birth to a child out of wedlock. The paper reported that her speech attacking the law that punished mothers for giving birth outside of marriage was so effective that she avoided the twin possible penalties of a fine and a whipping. Not only that, but the following day one of the judges married her. The story was picked up by a number of other British papers in the following days. It was reprinted in the May edition of the most popular English monthly magazine at the time, "The Gentleman's Magazine."

The story was reprinted by most of the dozen or so American newspapers, when it reached the colonies two months later. It was published numerous times in many newspapers and magazines over the next 80 years.

It was included as a factual event by abbé Gaillaume-Thomas Reynal in his history book on the New World in 1770, reissued in 1774 and 1780.

The Edinburgh Literary Magazine, reprinted the story and expanded on the life of Polly Baker in 1794.

It was included in the American Law Journal of 1813 as an actual legal case.

As late as 1912, when it was published in the German newspaper the Frankfurter Zeitung, it was still treated as a real and historical event and Polly was still treated as an historical person.

Within a few weeks of the 1747 publication of the story, there were debates over the truth of the speech and the existence of Polly Baker. In 1783, it was first attributed to Benjamin Franklin in a letter denouncing him by John Adams. Later Thomas Jefferson in 1818 wrote that some 33 years earlier Franklin had told him a story where he took credit for writing the Polly Baker speech.

In 1960, Max Hall came out with a book called "Benjamin Franklin & Polly Baker: The History of a Literary Deception" (University of Pittsburgh Press). This book seemed to present the definitive case for Franklin's authorship of the speech. It has been widely accepted as a fact by all Franklin scholars without question since this book.

In examining the book, I found that the case for Franklin's authorship was not a slam-dunk. There is much to question despite what one may read Wikipedia under Polly Baker). In fact, Franklin never stated in any of his writings that he wrote the Polly Baker article. He never mentions it in any of his own written works. I think that is very strange.

Hall uses literary analysis to show that the style of the speech was Franklin's and the ideology of deism that Polly supports was Franklin's ideology. The literary analysis is interesting, but not conclusive and many people held the deist philosophy of the time.

There are strong reasons for suggesting that Franklin did not write the article that Hall does not entirely bury. For example, Franklin was editing a newspaper at the time, 1747, when the piece appeared in the British newspaper and his paper was one of the few that did not reprint the speech when it arrived in America several months later. It seems absurd to write an article and not use it in your own newspaper. Instead, he allegedly sends it to England and had friends there plant the story. This occurs before Franklin became famous for his electrical experiments in the 1750's. It is hard to understand what would motivate him to do this. He could never be sure it would be published and he could not have foreseen the popularity of it. Why amuse a few thousand readers in London when he had thousands of readers of his own newspaper he could have amused?

The anecdote that has come down to us through Jefferson about how Franklin first revealed his authorship perhaps gives us the answer to why it has been attributed to Franklin. Allegedly, he was in France circa 1778 and at a party with Abbé Reynal who had published the Polly Baker story in his History of the New World in 1770. Reynal insisted that everything he wrote was true in the book. Franklin laughed and said that he knew that was not true because he, himself, had written the speech of Polly Baker. Reynal supposedly answered that he would rather publish the fictions of Ben Franklins than the truths of others.

This anecdote written by Jefferson seems to be the main and strongest proof of Franklin's authorship of Polly Baker. It is a wonderful story whether true or not. However, a key problem is that Reynal re-edited and reprinted his history two years later in 1780. Would he really have left the story as an historical fact in his history book if Franklin had actually told him it was his own literary creation? One can easily imagine that Jefferson had invented the anecdote himself.

Franklin was known for many literary hoaxes and deceptions. Hall lists ten of them in his book. However we also know that other works were falsely attributed to Franklin. It seems to me that we must recall the jury and not unequivocally judge Franklin as the author of Polly Baker just yet. It may very well be that the attribution of the work to Franklin might itself be the greatest myth or falsehood in the case.

Polly Baker straddles the line between history and myth. She is listed in law journals and history books and newspaper articles throughout the 18th and 19th century as existing. If the truth about her is so difficult to establish just 270 years later, how much more difficult is it to establish any truth about the Jesus character from some 2,000 years ago?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

It is most fascinating that unknown characters are compared to Jesus of Nazareth probably the most documented myth character with perhaps thousands of versions.

Polly Baker may have been described as a woman but Jesus was described as the product of a Ghost in thousands of ancient manuscripts or described as the product of a Ghost over a thousand times in existing texts.

Comparing Polly Baker to Jesus is like attempting to compare Zeus with Robin Hood.

It is extremely devastating to note that all the authors named for the Jesus stories are fake and supported by both Fake and Anonymous Epistles.

mountainman

Nice thread Jay.

Welcome back Shesh.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete et al.,

Thanks.

Another way that the Polly Baker story resembles the early Christian literature is in the permutations and changes that the story goes through over the years.

"The Gentleman's Magazine" when it published the story a month after "the General Advertiser" changed it from a contemporary happening to an historical event. It added the detail that Polly had married one of her judges and had had fifteen children with him. That meant the speech could not have taken place in 1747, but in 1732 at the latest (assuming one child per year). Before this, the readers would have assumed that the story was a news story of a contemporary event happening a few months past in early 1747 or late 1746.

The French Philosopher Voltaire retold the story and speech, and said that the man she married was the first man who had seduced her and made her pregnant, a man that she had been in love with and had wanted to marry. This gave the story even more of a fairy-tale happy ending.

The "Edinburgh Literary Magazine" in 1794 added a few paragraphs of biographical material on Polly which was not in any printings of the speech before then. Since Franklin died in 1790, it seems that somebody else wrote the biographical information. He possibly confused Polly with another person or perhaps, wanting to add veracity to the story, just made up a fictional biography.

Also interesting are the speculations on what materials might have been used in the literary creation of Polly Baker.

Max Hall in his book Benjamin Franklin and Polly Baker: A Literary Deception did find one woman who may have been the model for Polly. Eleonor Kellog was tried for at least the sixth time in November, 1745 in Worchester, Massachusetts, for committing the crime of fornication. Nine male justices were present. Unlike Polly who escaped her sentence, Eleonor was sentenced to be "severely and publicly whipped on the naked back" and to pay a fine. It was not recorded that she gave any speech. Again, unlike Polly who had five children born out of wedlock, she was only charged four times with "having a bastard child." She was also arrested once for not attending church and finally in 1745 on the charge of "fornication."

Another model for Polly Baker may have been "Moll Flanders," (1722), the title character in an early novel by Daniel Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe." She gives birth to twelve children by six different men in the course of the novel. She offers many eloquent speeches in defense of her licentious activities.



Warmly,

Jay Raskin

maryhelena

Thanks, Jay. Interesting read.

Nothing new under the sun - so the saying goes. Where originality does spring from is using, re-arranging, what is known in new forms. In other words; the gospel writers re-arranged known facts/events to tell a new story. Creativity, yes, originality, yes - but a forward movement that stemmed from experience of historical realities. i.e. it was never all in the mind. Sure, the mind can add the fancy stuff, the wishful thinking, the pure imagination - but the gospel story is still able to retain a foothold on reality because of it's roots in actual human experience. And no amount of mythicist argument is going to be able to cut the gospel tie to history - to Jewish historical experience.

What mythicists should be doing is searching for the historical figures that could have been used by the gospel writers in creating their story. Polly Baker might well be a literary figure - but whoever created that literary figure had historical figures upon which to draw. i.e. what is needed is to dissect that gospel JC figure into it's composite parts. Just knocking that figure down by argument, by words, is getting nowhere fast. That JC figure needs to be taken apart, piece by piece - laid bare. That way, methinks, opens up possibilities for understanding how that literary figure was put together, created.

Iskander

What has Polly Barker got to do with Jesus?

Perspicuo

Perhaps as an example of how hearsay can evolve into "fact". I find it interesting that "Reynal insisted that everything he wrote was true in the book. Franklin laughed and said that he knew that was not true because he, himself, had written the speech of Polly Baker. Reynal supposedly answered that he would rather publish the fictions of Ben Franklins than the truths of others", is similar to Paul having learned of the Jesus story from reputable sources.

PhilosopherJay

Hi maryhelena,

I think you are right about finding historical sources for the Jesus character, but I think finding literary and fictional sources is also correct, as it is likely that a mixture was used.

Something struck me this morning that I think is very important. Polly Baker was widely accepted as a real and historical person from 1747 to 1818. I recall that one British newspaper article around 1770 mentioned the case, but declared that they would not repeat the text of the speech because every person in England already knew it. In 1798, the Edinburgh Magazine gave her a new biography adding such information that she was "the daughter of a reputable mechanic, soberly, and, as is the custom of the town, religiously brought up."

This biography and the speech was reprinted in numerous newspapers in the United States in the early 1800's. Thus most educated Americans believed at that time that Polly Baker was a real and historical person who lived just a generation or two before them.

In 1818, that perception changed. In a book entitled "Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817, by Francis Hall, Lieut. 14th Light Dragoons H.P., published in England, the author gives an amusing anedote he said he heard from Thomas Jefferson about Abbe Raynal and Ben Franklin, in which Franklin confessed to writing the Polly Baker article.

This anedote was taken from the book and reprinted in a number of newspapers, starting with the Alexandria Herald on November 13, 1818:

A few months later, on January 12, 1819, Jefferson himself wrote this anecdote in a letter to Nathaniel Macon:

There are a number of curious discrepancies in the two stories (for example, "no law in New England" in the first and "no law in Massachusetts" in the second), but I believe the most important one is the absence of Silas Deane in Francis Hall's version and his important appearance in Jefferson's version. In Jefferson's version the whole argument is between Silas Deane and Abbe Raynal. Franklin just acts as the adjudicator. In Hall's version, Deane becomes "one of several Americans."

Silas Deane died in 1789, a year before Franklin. He was a merchant, diplomat and supporter of the American revolution, until he betrayed the United States in 1781 and called for a rapprochement with England. Why does Jefferson give him such an important role in the anedote? By 1818, dead almost 20 years, he must have been long forgotten by most people.

In my opinion, it is probable that Jefferson did not get the story from Franklin, but got the story from Deane. Saying that he got the story from the notorious traitor Deane would have cast doubt on its authenticity. It was simpler and better to say that he got the story directly from Franklin.

If we assume that Deane was the actual source of the story, the statement that there was never any such laws in Massachusetts and New England become understandable. There were laws against having "bastard children" as they were called in Massachusetts and New England. Being a merchant, Deane would not have been expected to know about such laws, while Franklin did have knowledge of the laws.

In any case, the anecdote delivered by Jefferson was enough to kill Polly Baker. while her speech was reprinted in numerous history and law books afterwards, in the 19th century, the anecdote of Franklin's authorship has been generally accepted as the historical truth for the last 188 years.

In general the word of Thomas Jefferson has been accepted, although Franklin himself never wrote anything about Polly Baker and his newspaper in 1847 never published anything about her. Despite Franklin talking and writing to thousands of people from 1747 to 1790, apparently nobody else ever heard or read the amusing anecdote from Franklin.

In my opinion, the story was probably an anti-Raynal, anti-French, anti-deist and anti-Franklin story created by Silas Deane and unwittingly backed and transmitted by Jefferson.

Here is a little bit more important information about Deane. Note that Benjamin Franklin was one of the people who had accused Deane of financial misconduct in Paris. This anecdote was perhaps part of Deane's campaign to brand Franklin as a liar.

We should note that what finally gets Polly relegated from historical person to fictional character is the personal testimony of a reliable source (Jefferson) that he heard the author say that he created her. This suggests that we need to get a reliable source to claim they heard the author of the original Jesus story say that he was the author and Jesus was his creation.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

maryhelena

Indeed - I perhaps harp on the historical figures a lot because these seem, to my thinking, to not get the attention they surely require. Literary and fictional figures, sources, are 'safe'. 1) They don't take one into the muddy waters of Jewish history. 2) They don't challenge some mythicist ideas that shy away from acknowledging some historical grounding, root, to the gospel JC story.

Jay, you have done a lot of research here - all very interesting. It is what should be done with the gospel JC story - how, where, and why did it originate. If all this can be done with the Polly Baker story - then there is no reason why NT scholars should not be attempting to do the same with the Jesus story. Oh, well - but the ahistoricists/mythicists should be up to it!

If only.........alternatively, perhaps looking for someone whose writing supports elements of that gospel story - support without which that gospel story would have no legs whatsoever. Is not that someone the Josephan writer?

In other words - turn the Josephan support upside down. Instead of it being viewed as supporting historicity for JC - the Josephan support for elements of the gospel story is the very opposite of that: It is supporting a fictional/literary character. Face the Josephan writer in that frame of mind - and that writer might well be the 'missing link' to understanding the gospel JC story.

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Perhaps a further myth will make her twelve children into apostles ....


The Speech of Polly Baker





Was Polly Baker crucified?