Ben Franklin was the most famous American of his era. Ken Burns' new doc shows why
If we are reckoning by money, Benjamin Franklin — the man on the $100 bill — is 20 times as important as Abraham Lincoln, 100 times as important as George Washington and 10 times as important as Alexander Hamilton, notwithstanding "Hamilton." This is bad math, of course, because there is no reckoning by which Andrew Jackson is four times as important than Lincoln, or 20 times as important than ...
If we are reckoning by money, Benjamin Franklin — the man on the $100 bill — is 20 times as important as Abraham Lincoln, 100 times as important as George Washington and 10 times as important as Alexander Hamilton, notwithstanding "Hamilton." This is bad math, of course, because there is no reckoning by which Andrew Jackson is four times as important than Lincoln, or 20 times as important than Washington. But it gives you some sense of his historical and cultural status that Franklin, not a president, is the face on the highest denomination of currency now in circulation. (And he's been a figure in at least two musicals, "Ben Franklin in Paris" and "1776," so he has
