page_title: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
section_title: Professional life
hierarchical_section_title: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn / Biography / Professional life
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of F.B. Sanborn taken in 1856 at age 21
context_page_description: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures. He founded the American Social Science Association, in 1865, "to treat wisely the great social problems of the day". He was a member of the Secret Six, or "Committee of Six", which funded the militant abolitionist John Brown.
context_section_description: Sanborn was active in politics as a member of the Free Soil Party in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In 1856, he became secretary of the Massachusetts Kansas Commission and came into close touch with John Brown. Sanborn was one of six influential men who supplied Brown with support for the John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry on October 16–18, 1859. This group was later termed the Secret Six. Although Sanborn disavowed advance knowledge of the attack, he defended Brown to the end of his life, assisted in the support of Brown's widow and children, and made periodic pilgrimages to his grave.
  On the night of April 3, 1860, five federal marshals arrived at Frank Sanborn's home in Concord, handcuffed him and attempted to wrestle him into a coach and take him to Washington to answer questions before the Senate in regard to his involvement with John Brown. Approximately 150 townspeople rushed to Sanborn's defense. Judge Ebenezer R. Hoar issued a writ of replevin, formally demanding the surrender of the prisoner. In a letter to a friend, Louisa May Alcott wrote, "Sanborn was nearly kidnapped. Great ferment in town. Annie Whiting immortalized herself by getting into the kidnapper's carriage so that they could not put the long legged martyr in."
  From 1863 to 1867 Sanborn was an editor of The Commonwealth newspaper of Boston, from 1867 to 1897 of the Journal of Social Science, and from 1868 to 1914 a correspondent of the  Springfield Republican.  He was one of the founders of, and was closely identified with, the American Social Science Association (secretary 1865–1897), the National Prison Association, the National Conference of Charities, the Clarke School for the Deaf, the Massachusetts Infant Asylum, and the Concord School of Philosophy.  He lectured at Cornell, Smith, and Wellesley.
  In October 1863, he became secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Charities, the first established in America. He was secretary from 1863 to 1868, a member from 1870 to 1876, and chairman from 1874 to 1876. In 1875, he made a searching investigation into the abuses of the Tewksbury almshouse, and in consequence that institution was reformed. In 1879 he helped to reorganize the system of Massachusetts charities, with special reference to the care of children and insane persons, in July 1879 becoming State Inspector of Charities under the new board, serving until 1888.
caption: Frank Sanborn at age 21
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