BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1706 –1790

           Benjamin Franklin was an American printer, author, diplomat, philosopher, and scientist, whore many contributions to the cause of the American Revolution, and the newly formed federal government that followed, rank him among the country’s greatest statesmen.

          Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston. His father Josiah Franklin (1688-1745), a fellow chandler by trade, had 17 children, Benjamin was the 15^th child and the 10^th son. His mother Abiah Folger (1667-1752), was his father’s 2^nd wife. The Franklin family lived modestly, like most New Englanders of the time. After his at­tendance at grammar score from age eight to ten, Benjamin was taken into his father’s business. Finding the work uncongenial, he entered the employ of a cutler. At age of 13 he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had recently returned from England with a new printing press. Benjamin learned the printing trade, devoting his spare time to the advancement of his education. His reading included Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, Parallel Lives, by Plutarch, Essay on Project by Daniel Defoe, and the Essays to Do Good by Colton Mather. When he ac­quired a copy of the third volume of the Spectator by Steele and Addison*, he set himself the goal of mastering its prose style.

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* Bunyan, John (1628-1688) — Englishwriter;

Plutarch (c AD 46-С.120) — Greek biographer and essayist;

Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731) — Englishwriter;

Mather, Cotton (1663-1728) — American theologian andwriter;

Steele, Richard (1672— 1720) — Irish essayist;

Addison, Joseph (1672-1719) — Eng­lish writer.

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             In 1721, his brother James Franklin estab­lished the New EnglandCourant. Benjamin, at the age of 15, was busily occupied in deliv­ering the new paper by day and in composing articles for it at night. These articles, pub­lished anonymously, won wide notice and ac­claim for the pithy observations on the cur­rent scene. In 1722, as a consequence of an article considered particularly offensive, James Franklin was imprisoned for a month and forbidden to publish his paper, and for a while it appeared under Benjamin’s name.

            As a result or disagreements with James, Benjamin left Boston and made his way to Philadelphia, arriving in October 1723. There he worked at his trade and made nu­merous friends, among whom was Sir Wil­liam Keith (1680-1749), the provincial gov­ernor of Pennsylvania. He persuaded Fran­klin to go to London to complete his train­ing as a printer and to purchase the equip­ment needed to start his own printing es­tablishment in Philadelphia. Young Frank­lin took this advice, arriving in London in December 1724. Not having received from Keith certain promised letters of introduc­tion and credit, Franklin found himself, at the age of 18, without means in a strange city. With characteristic resourcefulness, he obtained employment at two of the foremost printing houses in London, Palmer’s and Watt’s. His appearance, bearing, and ac­complishments soon won him the recogni­tion of a number of the most distinguished figures in the literary and publishing world.

                In October 1726, Franklin returned to Phil­adelphia and resumed his trade. The follow­ing year with a number of his acquaintanc­es, he organized a discussion group known as the Junto, which later became the Amer­ican philosophical Society. In September, 1729, he bought the Pennsylvania Gazette, a dull, poorly edited weekly newspaper, which he made, by his witty style and judicious selection of news, both entertaining and informative. In 1730, he married Deborah Read (1705-1774), a Philadelphia woman whom he had known before his trip to England.

                  Franklin engaged in many public projects. In 1731 he founded what was probably the pub­lic library in America, chartered in 1742 as the Philadelphia Library. He first published Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1732, under the pen name of Richard Sanders. The modest volume quickly gained a wide and apprecia­tive audience and its homespun, practical wisdom exerted a pervasive influence upon the American character. In 1736, Franklin became clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the next year was appointed deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. About this time, he organized the first fire company in that city and introduced methods for the improvement of street paving and lighting. Al­ways interested in scientific studies, he de­vised means to correct the excessive smoking of chimneys and invented, around 1744, the Franklin store, which furnished greater heat with a reduced consumption of fuel.

              In 1747, Franklin began his electrical ex­periment with a simple apparatus that he received from Peter Collinson (1699-1768) in England. He advanced a tenable theory of the Leyden jar ( a glass jar coated inside and out with tinfoil used as an electrical con­denser), supported the hypothesis that light­ing is an electrical phenomenon, and pro­posed an effective method of demonstrating this fact. His plan was published in London and carried out in England and France be­fore he himself performed his celebrated experiment with the kite in 1752. He invent­ed the lighting rod and offered what is called the “one-fluid” theory in explanation of the two kinds of electricity, positive and nega­tive. In recognition of his impressive scien­tific accomplishments, Franklin received hon­orary degrees from the University of Saint Andrews and the University of Oxford. He also became a fellow of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge and, in 1753, was awarded, its Copley Medal for distinguished contribution to experimen­tal science. Franklin also exerted a great in­fluence on education in Pennsylvania. In 1749, he wrote Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania; its pub­lication led to the establishment in 1751 of the Philadelphia Academy, later to become the University of Pennsylvania.

                In 1748, Franklin sold his printing busi­ness and, in 1750, was elected to the Penn Assembly, in which he served until 1764. He was appointed deputy postmaster gen­eral for the colonies in 1753, and in 1754 he was the delegate from Pennsylvania to the intercolonial congress that met at Al­bany to consider methods of dealing with the threatened French and Indian War. His Albany Plan, in many ways prophetic of the 1787. U.S. Constitution, provided for local independence within a framework of colonial union, but was too far in advance of public thinking to obtain ratification. In was his staunch belief that the adoption of this plan would have averted the Amer­ican Revolution.

               He was sent to Britain in 1757 to lobby Par­liament about tax grievances, achieving the repeal of the Stamp act. On his return to the USA, he was prominent in the delibera­tions leading up to independence. As am­bassador in Paris he enlisted French help for the American Revolution, and after inde­pendence he became president of Pennsyl­vania and worked hard to abolish slavery. In 1757, Franklin travelled again to Brit­ain, this time with proper credentials as the Agent of Pennsylvania Assembly, and stayed on and off until 1775, attending meetings of the Royal Society as well ascampaigning for the independence of the American colo­nies as their leading spokesman in Britain.

                 Back in America, Franklin helped to draft the Declaration on Independence in 1776 and was one of its signatories. He then travelled to France to enlist help for the American cause in the Revolutionary War that fol­lowed, successfully organizing nearly all outside aid. He played a central part in the negotiation of the peace with Britain, in 1783 signing a treaty that guaranteed independ­ence. Franklin, although now well over sev­enty, continued to play an active part in the affairs of the new nation; in 1787 he guided the Constitutional Convention to formulate and ratify the Constitution.

                Franklin was deeply interested in philan­thropic projects, and one of his last public acts was to sign a petition to the U.S. Con­gress, on February 12, 1790, as president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, urg­ing the abolition of slavery and the sup­pression of the slave trade Two months lat­er, on April 17, Franklin died in his Phila­delphia home at 84 years of age.