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Sally Franklin Bache was the only daughter of Benjamin Franklin. She lived in Boston and Philadelphia and frequently acted as her father’s liaison while he was in France. Bache was well-educated and a patriot, co-founding the Ladies Association of Philadelphia alongside Esther De Berdt Reed (Baetjer 2003, 169). Bache was aware that her position as Benjamin Franklin’s daughter “was a lightning rod for political expression” and used that power to her advantage (Conger 2018, 336).

Bache was not particularly political in her early life, as her father “assumed an authoritative judgmental position that imposed boundaries on [her mother’s] political engagement” leaving her largely without a role model of a woman in politics (Conger 2018, 331). Regardless, Bache’s mother did find ways to express herself politically, managing to teach her “a great deal about politics and the female voice” and Bache absorbed this as well as her father’s political actions (Conger 2018, 334). Her patriotism and hatred of the British grew in the lead up to the war and during the war itself because “she experienced the ravages of war, witnessing the political upheavals in Massachusetts, and was forced from her home in Boston; then, when she lived with the Baches, she had chased twice from her temporary home (Conger 2018, 343).

Her experiences with the British, along with her father’s patriotism, bred in her “the radical ideology” that identified other “female patriots” (Conger 2018, 337). She exuded “female power, strength, and resistance” in her leadership, overcoming all of the hardships inflicted on her (Conger 2018, 335). She was lucky enough to have her husband approve of her “civic engagement and leadership” so she engaged in politics fearlessly (Conger 2018, 345).

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Sarah Franklin Bache was slow to get into politics. While she was always a patriot, her “political consciousness had slowly but ineluctably still emerged” and she didn’t become publicly political until she was thirty-seven and co-founded the Ladies Association of Philadelphia (Conger 2018, 341, 336). Bache eventually fell into the same class of women as those who comprise the rest of this exhibit, who “increasingly experienced the consequences of British politics” and became “more politicized and unafraid of engaging in the public performance of Revolutionary culture” (Conger 2018, 340).

Bache went beyond the actions of many other women of her time. While she was “aware that even seemingly ordinary actions had wider political consequences,” she became an expert in more overt activism and persuasion (Conger 2018, 340). Her engagement with her father’s political associations gave her the insight to act politically, while also providing her with power to have her opinions heard. Bache expressed those opinions specifically to her father, although her actions in the Ladies Association of Philadelphia make them clear as well. She writes to her father on a mutiny in Pennsylvania that she believes “there is till a great deal of Virtue left in the army” but simultaneously expresses concerns that “our great folks appear to me to be intirely taken up with trying to raise their Fortunes, or endeavouring to gain honners” (Sarah Franklin Bache to Benajmin Franklin, 14 January 1781, Franklin Papers, Founders.org). This proclamation represents the “elite feminine patriotism [that] became an important rallying point for the republican cause” that Bache was deeply integrated with (Arendt 2014, 184).

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Sarah Franklin Bache’s most public display of patriotism occurred through her leadership in the Ladies Association of Philadelphia. Her engagement with the Association allowed her to rise “to the sort of political prominence that might have been expected of a member of Benjamin Franklin’s family, leading many Pennsylvania women in their efforts to supply clothing to the soldiers in the field” (Baetjer 2003, 170). Bache, in her swelling patriotism, joined “a group of women from leading, wealthy households in Philadelphia gathered to discuss ways of supporting both the troops and the treasury” (Arendt 2014, 158).

Bache took her engagement with the Association very seriously, writing “letters to many women asking them to join” much like Esther DeBerdt Reed, and committing time, money, and space in her home toward their success (Arendt 2014, 186). In her efforts for the Ladies Association of Philadelphia, she expressed “uncommon determination and resilience” by successfully “engaging the Quaker women of Pennsylvania in the war effort” (Baetjer 2003, 170). Additionally, she created “a makeshift storage area in her home that held more than 2,000 shirts destined for soldiers of the Pennsylvania line” and writes of it to her father, saying: “we packed the shirts in three boxes, and delivered them to Coll Miles, with a request that he would send them to Trenton immediately” (Arendt 2014, 157; Sarah Franklin Bache to Benjamin Franklin, 26 December 1780, Franklin Papers, Founders.org).

Bache put considerable effort into the association, overcoming both hardships in her own life and those that the Association faced as a whole. The Association’s wish to send money rather than clothing was struck down by the General, forcing the women to enter “the history books as domestic patriots” rather than the strong public figures they were (Arendt 2014, 183). Then, their president, Esther DeBerdt Reed died, an event which could have swallowed the organization. However, Bache, along with the organization, found ways to rise above the hardships and “took charge of the final preparation,” once again displaying her determination and commitment to the cause (Arendt 2014, 174).

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Sarah Franklin Bache was also very politically significant because of her relationship with her father. Bache often acted as a liaison between her father in France and his associates in the colonies/United States. She operated as a messenger who corresponded with figures as prominent as George Washington, who “talk’d to [Bache] several times about [her father] last Winter” and as a pseudo-secretary, introducing people and transferring petitions to her father (Sarah Franklin Bache to Benjamin Franklin, 14 September 1779, Franklin Papers, Founders.org). Bache’s importance to her father gave her even more power, putting her within politics and connecting her to other powerful figures, and paved the way to the active patriot she became.