This is the earliest known surviving Franklin account book. It was kept by Franklin and his wife, Deborah, and very few entries are in other hands. Paper was expensive and ruled books were especially dear: therefore, Franklin used the last half of this volume for Ledger B. "Leidger A" (Journal) is the front half of the book and the entries are records of sales, purchases, printing expenses, bills, etc., under the date of the transaction, and then they were posted under the name of the customer in "Leidger B" (Ledger). Beginning with page 169 the Ledger entries follow, recording individual customers' accounts. There is an eight page index which precedes this Ledger and Franklin, by November 1736 had used all of the pages in the back of the book, so he then used the blank pages between the Journal and the Ledger, and numbered the pages from front to back. Franklin noted that he had cancelled all of the accounts by March 5, 1757, that were either "settled or not like to be recovered." Some of these were "Carried to Ledger E."; Each row has been assigned a numerical ID to allow sorting while preserving the data's context. For further information about the dataset, please see its documentation.
This volume contains the same kind of entries as "Leidger A" (Journal) and most of the entries herein were made by Deborah Franklin. Since these entries overlap with those in "Leidger A" (Journal), it is sensible to assume that the entries were made in whichever volume proved more convenient at the time, with Franklin more likely to use the Journal and his wife the Shop Book. Most entries appear under date of transaction. From the Shop Book and "Leidgers A & B" a good picture of Franklin's business activities emerges. His printing ventures, goods sold over the counter in the shop and items for his business use or resale give an insight to the struggles to get ahead in the world, for he sold everything from ink and quills to printed legal forms and books.; Each row has been assigned a numerical ID to allow sorting while preserving the data's context. For further information about the dataset, please see its documentation.
