Contact
Sally James
+44 207 839 2006
Info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org
www.BenjaminFranklinHouse.org
PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Benjamin Franklin House Annual Symposium: Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf, 19
September 2011
London, 27 July 2011 – On Monday 19 September 2011, Benjamin Franklin House, in association with
the Eccles Centre for American Studies, will host its Annual Symposium at the British Library featuring
award-winning historian and author Andrea Wulf. Wulf will discuss Founding Gardeners – How the
Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden.
Wulf’s illustrated talk will explore how the American founding father’s attitude to plants, gardens, nature,
and agriculture shaped the American nation. For them, she will argue, gardening, agriculture and botany
were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation
they were creating.
Benjamin Franklin features in Wulf’s story: during his long stay in London, he facilitated the shipment of
seeds and plants between Britain and America and fostered botanical relationships that would prove
politically useful. So does George Washington; even as British ships gathered to attack New York in
1776, Washington wrote to his estate manager with instructions for his garden at Mount Vernon. She tells
of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams taking time from their diplomatic endeavours in London after the
American Revolution for an inspirational garden tour around Britain, and demonstrates why James
Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. In her unique retelling of the creation of
America, Wulf will show how plants, politics and personalities intertwined as never before.
Andrea Wulf was born in India and moved to Germany as a child. She trained as a design historian at
Royal College of Art and is the author of The Brother Gardeners (long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize
2008 and winner of the American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award) and the co-author (with Emma
Gieben-Gamal) of This Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History. She has
written for The Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Garden, and regularly
reviews for several newspapers, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian and the New
York Times.
The Benjamin Franklin House Annual Symposium focuses on themes related to science and history.
Previous speakers have included particle physicist Professor Brian Cox and Editor of The Lancet, Dr.
Richard Hornton.
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Notes to Editors:
1. Benjamin Franklin House hosts the Annual Symposium: Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf on
Monday 19 September 2011, 6.30-8.00pm at Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library,
96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB. For more information and images, please contact Sally
James, Operations Manager on +44 (0)20 7839 2006 or info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org.
2. Tickets are £8 Adults and £5 for Friends & Concessions and can be booked by phone +44 (0)20
7839 2006, email info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org, or a cheque payable to Friends of Benjamin
Franklin House sent to Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NF.
3. Benjamin Franklin House is located in the heart of London, just steps from famed Trafalgar
Square. It is the world's only surviving Franklin residence. Between 1757 and 1775, it was home to
Dr Benjamin Franklin – scientist, diplomat, philosopher, inventor, and US Founding Father – and
became the first de facto US embassy during a pivotal time in Anglo-American history. Rescued
from dereliction, the Grade I heritage treasure opened to the public on Franklin's 300th birthday in
2006. See www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org.
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