The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution

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. 

Using research for her book, The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution (2025), Joyce E. Chaplin discusses Franklin’s idea 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 air moved through indoor spaces, might reveal the workings of the atmosphere outside and explain why it seemed to be changing. With his stove, Franklin became America’s first climate scientist. As the story shows, it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis. Chaplin reveals how that challenge is as old as the United States itself.