Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet

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.

Meyer's fascinating account of this two-hundred-year wager reveals:

• A Founding Father's Vision: How Franklin's deathbed bet on the "leather-apron" class was designed to strengthen the American Dream for centuries to come.
• Deeply Researched American History: The incredible two-hundred-year story of the twin funds in Boston and Philadelphia, from their inception to their surprising survival in 1991.
• Economic History in Action: An engrossing look at how the funds were misused, neglected, and contested, yet ultimately survived to pay out a windfall.
• Lessons on Wealth Disparity: A blueprint for modern prosperity, drawing sharp parallels between the Gilded Age, the Founding Era, and our own conflicted age.