Alcuin
Banned
I'm planning to start this as an alternative timeline but it is by no means finished yet. So far I have a biography (which see below) but, while some of the obvious changes are mentioned already (failure of the War of Independence, van Buren's Mississippi Republic as a seed for a wider independence of all the American colonies, no French Revolution, the discovery of antibiotics). I'd like to hear what anyone has to say about possible consequences.
Here's the biography (it's over 2,000 words I'm afraid).
Hannah was born Hannah Arnold(1), on January 4 1741. She was the second of six children to Benedict Arnold III and Hannah Waterman King in Norwich, Connecticut although she was a descendant of the more famous Benedict Arnold, known as a governor of Rhode Island. Only Hannah survived to adulthood, the other four siblings succumbing to yellow fever while children.
The Arnold family was financially well-to-do until Hannah's father made several bad business deals that plunged the family into debt. This, on top of the deaths of three of his children, including his favourite, Benedict V (Benedict IV having already died) Hannah's father turned to alcohol. At 14, Hannah was forced to withdraw from school because the family no longer could afford the luxury of educating a girl. Many a girl in such a situation might have gone into domestic service but, through her mother's family connections, she was able to find work in an apothecary and general merchandise shop belonging to her cousins, Daniel and Joshua Lathrop. Although she was not formally apprenticed, she did learn much about pharmaceuticals and about business from her
When Hannah was 15, Joshua Lathrop(2) ran away to enlist in the Connecticut militia. It is said that this may because he had feelings for Hannah that were not reciprocated. This seems unlikely given Hannah's later reaction. What is clear is that Joshua fought in the Battle of Fort William Henry, a battle at which British forces were humiliated by the French under the Marquis de Montcalm.
Subsequent to the British surrender, the native allies of the French were outraged by the easy terms offered to the British and Colonial forces. They had been promised scalps, arms and booty, and none were forthcoming. They fell upon the prisoners as they were being escorted away and massacred as many as 150 of them including Joshua(3). The French regulars were powerless to stop them but reported that after the murder of his General, George Washington, young Joshua Lathrop despite his youth fought so bravely (and so angrily) with bare hands and teeth against armed Abenaki warriors that by the time they had subdued him, the Abenaki withdrew to celebrate the bravery of the boy soldier.
Hannah's mother died in 1759 and she added the responsibility of supporting her ailing father to her duties working in Daniel Lathrop's shop. Her father's alcoholism got worse after the death of his wife and he was arrested on several occasions for public drunkenness and also was refused communion by his church (Perhaps this led to Hannah's later atheism). Benedict Arnold III died in 1761.
Hannah married Daniel Lathrop in 1762. She had been helping support Daniel even before her father died but by now she was managing Daniel's shop. After the wedding, they sold the shop and moved to New Haven Connecticut, where they established a pharmacy and bookselling business. Hannah was an excellent businesswoman and her ambition and aggression helped the business expand. In 1763, Daniel Lathrop bought the house Hannah's father had sold when deeply in debt. A year later, at Hannah's suggestion, the Lathrops re-sold the house for a substantial profit so that they were able to establish a partnership with Adam Babcock, another New Haven merchant to buy three trading ships. By 1765, Daniel Lathrop and Adam Babcock had established a lucrative West Indies trade. Daniel Lathrop travelled extensively in Quebec, New England and the West Indies, leaving Hannah to manage the shop.(4)
It was during this period that Hannah began the experiments that were eventually to lead to her discovery of benedictin, a broad spectrum antibiotic found in the mould, penicillium. She also established correspondence with Benjamin Franklin(5)
The Stamp Act of 1765 severely curtailed mercantile trade in the colonies. The Lanthrops initially took no part in any public demonstrations, but like many merchants, by 1766, conducted trade as if the Stamp Act did not exist, in effect becoming smugglers in defiance of the act. At this time Hannah Lathrop founded the New Haven Literary Circle, ostensibly for studying (and selling) classical books but in fact for disseminating the works of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and other dissidents.(6)
On the night of January 31 1767, a demonstration took place in New Haven at which the crowd (many of whom met up at Hannah's literary circle) denounced the acts of the British Parliament and their oppressive colonial policy. Local crown officials were burnt in effigy. The demonstrators roughed up a man suspected of being a smuggling informant. Hannah was arrested for sedition and imprisoned for two years.(7) In Prison, she continued her experimental work as well as treating the wounds of her fellow prisoners.
The oppressive taxes levied by parliament forced many New England merchants out of business Hannah had no business to return to when she left prison in 1769. Even worse, her husband had died in the meantime, having fought a duel with a French sea captain in Saint Domingue.(8)
Unable to support herself after her release, Hannah sold the shop and moved immediately to Boston where, with help from her maternal uncle, she began working as a schoolteacher. However, the Boston Massacre on March 5 1770 left her so shocked that she decided she could no longer live under British rule. She wrote to Benjamin Franklin that she was "very much shocked" and wondered "good God; are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their liberties, or are they all turned philosophers, that they don't take immediate vengeance on such miscreants".(9) Benjamin Franklin wrote back, suggesting that she come to stay with him in Paris. She made plans to do so and arrived in Paris in 1771.
Many historians have asked the question, what if Hannah had remained in Boston. It is possible that, with her views on England, and her previous conviction for sedition, that the British might have seized her as one of the scapegoats after the abortive rebellion of 1774 was put down only with the help of Hessian and Native troops. If that had been the case, we might never have developed antibiotics, and the cholera outbreaks that began in India in 1805 and soon spread worldwide might well have led to many more deaths than they did
Certainly, if Hannah had seen the horrors of the Rebellion, the disasters of Saratoga and Jackson Heights, it seems unlikely that she would have supported van Buren's adventure or the Mississippi Republic even though, with hindsight, it seems obvious that van Buren's was the only way to break the colonies free of England, France, Spain and Russia. That is all irrelevant though. We know that Hannah DID go to Paris and that the rest of her future was in Europe.
It was in Paris that Hannah met Benjamin Franklin's friend, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, her future husband (10). Both Franklin and Lavoisier encouraged Hannah to continue her experiments with mould as a treatment for sepsis. Lavoisier, himself a chemist of some repute, made his own laboratory available to her, and it is here that, between them they developed benedictin, the first antibiotic.
It was, of course a long process. Although at the time, benedictin was presented as the work of both of the Lavoisiers, modern historians believe the work on antibiotics was all her own, while the discovery of oxygen was the work of her husband. The site of the Lavoisier's laboratory is now the Musée Royale des Sciences, countless visitors are fascinated that two such important discoveries should have been brought to us in this one room.
Lavoisier announced the discovery of Oxygen, and his final proof of the falsity of the phlogiston theory in 1778. It was to be another six years before Hannah Lavoisier (they had married in 1775) was able to announce the cure for many bacterial diseases. In the meantime, her husband and Benjamin Franklin had been working together as part of a Royal Commission to debunk Mesmer's “animal magnetism” theories. In the process, they had developed the concept of a controlled clinical trial(11), the same method that was used to great effect in proving the efficacy of benedictin (and was to be widely used in the nineteenth century to prove the uselessness and even harmfulness of many noxious nostrums sold by quacks as “patent medicines”). Finally, in 1784, the Lavoisiers announced the new discovery to the world.
Their fame was not to last however, because of his correspondence with English scientist, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier came under suspicion in the months running up to the Irish War of 1790 and the Lavoisiers were forced to flee to Venice in December 1789. It was in Venice that they spent the rest of their lives. Antoine Lavoisier died in 1799 and Hannah died in 1801. Hannah kept Antoine's ashes and, when she too was cremated, their ashes were mixed and scattered over the Piazza San Marco.
NOTES
(1) In OTL, Benedict Arnold had a younger sister called Hannah. I've swapped the two children over and had the younger Benedict Arnold V, die in childhood of yellow fever just like OTL Benedict and Hannah's siblings.
(2) In OTL, Benedict Arnold himself took part in the Battle of Fort William Henry but he was one of the survivors.
(3) In OTL, Benedict Arnold survived this massacre and obviously so did George Washington, however, in OTL, there were 180 dead, not 150. Joshua's stand saved 32 lives in this TL.
(4) In OTL, Benedict Arnold left his sister Hannah in charge of the shop. Obviously OTL's Hannah Arnold didn't discover penicillin but a female Benedict would want to do something and a military career would be impossible.
(5) This butterfly fluttered in because the female Benedict Arnold needs to have a life worth writing about and it is entirely likely that if she had corresponded with Franklin, he would encourage scientific experiment.
(6) Here, Hannah takes a step further than Benedict Arnold as a revolutionary because she is living in New England constantly without the distraction of travel. The Literary Circle is a revolutionary organisation from the beginning
(7) In OTL Benedict Arnold was only fined 40 shillings for Breach of the Peace, the stronger sentence for Hannah is because she is seen as more of an organiser of anti-British activities.
(8) In OTL, it was Benedict Arnold who fought this duel in Honduras, forcing the British captain to apologise for his rudeness.
(9) The words were Benedict Arnold's in OTL. From this point on, Hannah's life bears no relation to Benedict Arnold's.
(10) In OTL, Lavoisier married 13 year old Marie-anne Pierrette Paulze, who did also work with him in the lab. Lavoisier really was a friend of Franklin so having him marry Hannah instead is not too far fetched.
(11) In OTL, Franklin and Lavoisier invented the controlled clinical trial for precisely this reason, to debunk Mesmer.
Here's the biography (it's over 2,000 words I'm afraid).
Hannah was born Hannah Arnold(1), on January 4 1741. She was the second of six children to Benedict Arnold III and Hannah Waterman King in Norwich, Connecticut although she was a descendant of the more famous Benedict Arnold, known as a governor of Rhode Island. Only Hannah survived to adulthood, the other four siblings succumbing to yellow fever while children.
The Arnold family was financially well-to-do until Hannah's father made several bad business deals that plunged the family into debt. This, on top of the deaths of three of his children, including his favourite, Benedict V (Benedict IV having already died) Hannah's father turned to alcohol. At 14, Hannah was forced to withdraw from school because the family no longer could afford the luxury of educating a girl. Many a girl in such a situation might have gone into domestic service but, through her mother's family connections, she was able to find work in an apothecary and general merchandise shop belonging to her cousins, Daniel and Joshua Lathrop. Although she was not formally apprenticed, she did learn much about pharmaceuticals and about business from her
When Hannah was 15, Joshua Lathrop(2) ran away to enlist in the Connecticut militia. It is said that this may because he had feelings for Hannah that were not reciprocated. This seems unlikely given Hannah's later reaction. What is clear is that Joshua fought in the Battle of Fort William Henry, a battle at which British forces were humiliated by the French under the Marquis de Montcalm.
Subsequent to the British surrender, the native allies of the French were outraged by the easy terms offered to the British and Colonial forces. They had been promised scalps, arms and booty, and none were forthcoming. They fell upon the prisoners as they were being escorted away and massacred as many as 150 of them including Joshua(3). The French regulars were powerless to stop them but reported that after the murder of his General, George Washington, young Joshua Lathrop despite his youth fought so bravely (and so angrily) with bare hands and teeth against armed Abenaki warriors that by the time they had subdued him, the Abenaki withdrew to celebrate the bravery of the boy soldier.
Hannah's mother died in 1759 and she added the responsibility of supporting her ailing father to her duties working in Daniel Lathrop's shop. Her father's alcoholism got worse after the death of his wife and he was arrested on several occasions for public drunkenness and also was refused communion by his church (Perhaps this led to Hannah's later atheism). Benedict Arnold III died in 1761.
Hannah married Daniel Lathrop in 1762. She had been helping support Daniel even before her father died but by now she was managing Daniel's shop. After the wedding, they sold the shop and moved to New Haven Connecticut, where they established a pharmacy and bookselling business. Hannah was an excellent businesswoman and her ambition and aggression helped the business expand. In 1763, Daniel Lathrop bought the house Hannah's father had sold when deeply in debt. A year later, at Hannah's suggestion, the Lathrops re-sold the house for a substantial profit so that they were able to establish a partnership with Adam Babcock, another New Haven merchant to buy three trading ships. By 1765, Daniel Lathrop and Adam Babcock had established a lucrative West Indies trade. Daniel Lathrop travelled extensively in Quebec, New England and the West Indies, leaving Hannah to manage the shop.(4)
It was during this period that Hannah began the experiments that were eventually to lead to her discovery of benedictin, a broad spectrum antibiotic found in the mould, penicillium. She also established correspondence with Benjamin Franklin(5)
The Stamp Act of 1765 severely curtailed mercantile trade in the colonies. The Lanthrops initially took no part in any public demonstrations, but like many merchants, by 1766, conducted trade as if the Stamp Act did not exist, in effect becoming smugglers in defiance of the act. At this time Hannah Lathrop founded the New Haven Literary Circle, ostensibly for studying (and selling) classical books but in fact for disseminating the works of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and other dissidents.(6)
On the night of January 31 1767, a demonstration took place in New Haven at which the crowd (many of whom met up at Hannah's literary circle) denounced the acts of the British Parliament and their oppressive colonial policy. Local crown officials were burnt in effigy. The demonstrators roughed up a man suspected of being a smuggling informant. Hannah was arrested for sedition and imprisoned for two years.(7) In Prison, she continued her experimental work as well as treating the wounds of her fellow prisoners.
The oppressive taxes levied by parliament forced many New England merchants out of business Hannah had no business to return to when she left prison in 1769. Even worse, her husband had died in the meantime, having fought a duel with a French sea captain in Saint Domingue.(8)
Unable to support herself after her release, Hannah sold the shop and moved immediately to Boston where, with help from her maternal uncle, she began working as a schoolteacher. However, the Boston Massacre on March 5 1770 left her so shocked that she decided she could no longer live under British rule. She wrote to Benjamin Franklin that she was "very much shocked" and wondered "good God; are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their liberties, or are they all turned philosophers, that they don't take immediate vengeance on such miscreants".(9) Benjamin Franklin wrote back, suggesting that she come to stay with him in Paris. She made plans to do so and arrived in Paris in 1771.
Many historians have asked the question, what if Hannah had remained in Boston. It is possible that, with her views on England, and her previous conviction for sedition, that the British might have seized her as one of the scapegoats after the abortive rebellion of 1774 was put down only with the help of Hessian and Native troops. If that had been the case, we might never have developed antibiotics, and the cholera outbreaks that began in India in 1805 and soon spread worldwide might well have led to many more deaths than they did
Certainly, if Hannah had seen the horrors of the Rebellion, the disasters of Saratoga and Jackson Heights, it seems unlikely that she would have supported van Buren's adventure or the Mississippi Republic even though, with hindsight, it seems obvious that van Buren's was the only way to break the colonies free of England, France, Spain and Russia. That is all irrelevant though. We know that Hannah DID go to Paris and that the rest of her future was in Europe.
It was in Paris that Hannah met Benjamin Franklin's friend, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, her future husband (10). Both Franklin and Lavoisier encouraged Hannah to continue her experiments with mould as a treatment for sepsis. Lavoisier, himself a chemist of some repute, made his own laboratory available to her, and it is here that, between them they developed benedictin, the first antibiotic.
It was, of course a long process. Although at the time, benedictin was presented as the work of both of the Lavoisiers, modern historians believe the work on antibiotics was all her own, while the discovery of oxygen was the work of her husband. The site of the Lavoisier's laboratory is now the Musée Royale des Sciences, countless visitors are fascinated that two such important discoveries should have been brought to us in this one room.
Lavoisier announced the discovery of Oxygen, and his final proof of the falsity of the phlogiston theory in 1778. It was to be another six years before Hannah Lavoisier (they had married in 1775) was able to announce the cure for many bacterial diseases. In the meantime, her husband and Benjamin Franklin had been working together as part of a Royal Commission to debunk Mesmer's “animal magnetism” theories. In the process, they had developed the concept of a controlled clinical trial(11), the same method that was used to great effect in proving the efficacy of benedictin (and was to be widely used in the nineteenth century to prove the uselessness and even harmfulness of many noxious nostrums sold by quacks as “patent medicines”). Finally, in 1784, the Lavoisiers announced the new discovery to the world.
Their fame was not to last however, because of his correspondence with English scientist, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier came under suspicion in the months running up to the Irish War of 1790 and the Lavoisiers were forced to flee to Venice in December 1789. It was in Venice that they spent the rest of their lives. Antoine Lavoisier died in 1799 and Hannah died in 1801. Hannah kept Antoine's ashes and, when she too was cremated, their ashes were mixed and scattered over the Piazza San Marco.
NOTES
(1) In OTL, Benedict Arnold had a younger sister called Hannah. I've swapped the two children over and had the younger Benedict Arnold V, die in childhood of yellow fever just like OTL Benedict and Hannah's siblings.
(2) In OTL, Benedict Arnold himself took part in the Battle of Fort William Henry but he was one of the survivors.
(3) In OTL, Benedict Arnold survived this massacre and obviously so did George Washington, however, in OTL, there were 180 dead, not 150. Joshua's stand saved 32 lives in this TL.
(4) In OTL, Benedict Arnold left his sister Hannah in charge of the shop. Obviously OTL's Hannah Arnold didn't discover penicillin but a female Benedict would want to do something and a military career would be impossible.
(5) This butterfly fluttered in because the female Benedict Arnold needs to have a life worth writing about and it is entirely likely that if she had corresponded with Franklin, he would encourage scientific experiment.
(6) Here, Hannah takes a step further than Benedict Arnold as a revolutionary because she is living in New England constantly without the distraction of travel. The Literary Circle is a revolutionary organisation from the beginning
(7) In OTL Benedict Arnold was only fined 40 shillings for Breach of the Peace, the stronger sentence for Hannah is because she is seen as more of an organiser of anti-British activities.
(8) In OTL, it was Benedict Arnold who fought this duel in Honduras, forcing the British captain to apologise for his rudeness.
(9) The words were Benedict Arnold's in OTL. From this point on, Hannah's life bears no relation to Benedict Arnold's.
(10) In OTL, Lavoisier married 13 year old Marie-anne Pierrette Paulze, who did also work with him in the lab. Lavoisier really was a friend of Franklin so having him marry Hannah instead is not too far fetched.
(11) In OTL, Franklin and Lavoisier invented the controlled clinical trial for precisely this reason, to debunk Mesmer.
