Franklin, Benjamin

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), was a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. No other American, except possibly Thomas Jefferson, has done so many things so well. During his long and useful life, Franklin concerned himself with such different matters as statesmanship and soapmaking, book-printing and cabbage-growing, and the rise of tides and the fall of empires. He also invented an efficient heating stove and proved that lightning is electricity.

As a statesman, Franklin stood in the front rank of the people who built the United States. He was the only person who signed all four of these key documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, and the Constitution of the United States. Franklin's services as a diplomat in France helped greatly in winning the Revolutionary War. Many historians consider him the ablest and most successful diplomat that America has ever sent abroad.

Franklin was the leader of his day in the study of electricity. As an inventor, he was unequaled in the United States until the time of Thomas A. Edison. People still quote from Franklin's Sayings of Poor Richard and read his Autobiography. Franklin helped establish Pennsylvania's first university and America's first city hospital.

Franklin's fame extended to Europe as well as America. Thomas Jefferson hailed him as "the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived." A French statesman, Count Honore de Mirabeau, referred to Franklin as "the sage whom two worlds claimed as their own."

Early Life

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Mass., on Jan. 17, 1706. He was the 15th child and youngest son in a family of 17 children. His parents, Josiah and Abiah Franklin, were hard-working, God-fearing folk. His father made soap and candles in his shop "at the sign of the Blue Ball" on Milk Street.

Student and apprentice. Benjamin attended school in Boston for only two years. He proved himself excellent in reading, fair in writing, and poor in arithmetic. Josiah Franklin decided that he could not afford further education for his youngest son. He kept Benjamin home after the age of 10 to help cut wicks and melt tallow in the candle and soap shop.

Franklin's schooling ended, but his education did not. He believed that "the doors of wisdom are never shut," and continued to read every book that he could get. He worked on his own writing style, using a volume of the British journal The Spectator as a model. His prose became clear, simple, and effective. The boy also taught himself the basic principles of algebra and geometry, navigation, grammar, logic, and the natural and physical sciences. He studied and partially mastered French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. He eagerly read such books as Pilgrim's Progress, Plutarch's Lives, Cotton Mather's Essays to Do Good, and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Franklin made himself one of the best-educated persons of his time.

Franklin did not care much for the trade of candlemaking. When the boy was 12, his father persuaded him to become an apprentice to his older brother James, a printer. James proved to be a good teacher, and Benjamin a good pupil. He soon became a skilled printer. He wrote several newspaper articles, signed them "Mrs. Silence Dogood," and slipped them under the printshop door. James admired the articles, and printed several of them. But he refused to print any more when he discovered that Benjamin had written them. The brothers quarreled frequently, and Benjamin longed to become his own master. At 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia, which was then the largest city in the American Colonies. The story of his arrival there has become a classic of American folklore. Many tales describe the runaway apprentice trudging bravely up Market Street with a Dutch dollar in his pocket, carrying one loaf of bread under each arm and eating a third.

Printer. From 1723 to 1730, Franklin worked for various printers in Philadelphia and in London, England, where he was sent to buy printing presses. He became part owner of a print shop in 1728, when he was 22. Two years later, he became sole owner of the business. He began publishing The Pennsylvania Gazette, writing much of the material for this newspaper himself. His name gradually became known throughout the colonies. Franklin had a simple formula for business success. He believed that successful people had to work just a little harder than any of their competitors. As one of his neighbors said: "The industry of that Franklin is superior to anything I ever saw ... I see him still at work when I go home from the club; and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."

Later in 1730, Franklin married Deborah Read, the daughter of his first Philadelphia landlady. Deborah was not nearly so well educated as her husband. Her letters to him have many misspelled words. The Franklins were a devoted couple. He addressed his letters to "my dear Debby," and she signed her replies, "your afeckshonet wife."

Franklin had three children, two boys and a girl. One of the boys, William, became governor of New Jersey.

The First Citizen of Philadelphia

Publisher. Franklin's printing business prospered from the start. He developed The Pennsylvania Gazette into one of the most successful newspapers in the colonies. He always watched carefully for new ideas. Historians credit him as the first editor in America to publish a newspaper cartoon, and to illustrate a news story with a map. He laid many of his projects for civic reform before the public in his newspaper. Franklin published The Pennsylvania Gazette from 1729 until 1766.

But Franklin achieved even greater success with Poor Richard's Almanac than with his newspaper. He wrote and published the almanac for every year from 1733 to 1758. The fame of the almanac rests mainly on the wise and witty sayings that Franklin scattered through each issue. Many of these sayings preach the virtues of industry, frugality, and thrift. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." "God helps them that help themselves." "Little strokes fell great oaks." Other sayings reflect a shrewd understanding of human nature. "He's a fool that makes his doctor his heir." "He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."

Civic leader. Franklin never actively sought public office, although he was interested in public affairs. In 1736, he became clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. The poor service of the colonial postal service disturbed him greatly. Hoping to improve matters, he agreed to become Philadelphia's postmaster in 1737. He impressed the British government with his efficiency in this position, and in 1753 he became deputy postmaster general for all the colonies. Franklin worked hard at this job, and introduced many needed reforms. He set up the first city delivery system and the first Dead-Mail Office. He speeded foreign mail deliveries by using the fastest packet ships available across the Atlantic Ocean. To speed domestic mail service, he hired more post riders, and required his couriers to ride both night and day. Franklin also helped Canada establish its first regular postal service. He opened post offices at Quebec, Montreal, and Trois Rivieres in 1763. He also established messenger service between Montreal and New York.

Franklin was public-spirited, and worked constantly to make Philadelphia a better city. He helped establish the first subscription library in the American Colonies. The members of this library contributed money to buy books, and then used them free of charge. The original collection still exists. Fire losses in Philadelphia were alarmingly high, and Franklin organized a fire department. He reformed the city police when he saw that criminals were getting away without punishment. City streets were unpaved, dirty, and dark, so he started a program to pave, clean, and light them. Philadelphia shamefully neglected the sick and insane during Franklin's time. He raised money to help build a city hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital, for these unfortunates. Scholars in the American Colonies had no professional organization, so Franklin helped establish the American Philosophical Society, with headquarters in Philadelphia. The city had no school for higher education, so Franklin helped found the academy that grew into the University of Pennsylvania. As a result of projects such as these, Philadelphia became the most advanced city in the 13 colonies.

The Scientist

Experiments with electricity. Franklin was one of the first persons in the world to experiment with electricity. He conducted his most famous electrical experiment at Philadelphia in 1752. He flew a homemade kite during a thunderstorm, and proved that lightning is electricity. A bolt of lightning struck a pointed wire fastened to the kite and traveled down the kite string to a key fastened at the end, where it caused a spark. Then he tamed lightning by inventing the lightning rod (see Lightning Rod). He urged his fellow citizens to use this device as a sure "means of securing the habitations and other buildings from mischief from thunder and lightning." When lightning struck Franklin's own home, the soundness of his invention became apparent. The lightning rod saved the building from damage. Franklin's lightning rod demonstrated his saying that "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Authorities generally agree that Franklin created such electrical terms as armature, condenser, and battery. See Electricity.

Franklin's experiments with electricity involved some personal risk. He knocked himself unconscious at least once. He had been trying to kill a turkey with an electric shock, but something went wrong and Franklin, not the bird, was stunned. Franklin later said: "I meant to kill a turkey, and instead, I nearly killed a goose."

Other studies. Franklin's scientific interests ranged far beyond electricity. He became the first scientist to study the movement of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. He spent much time charting its course and recording its temperature, speed, and depth. Franklin was the first to show scientists and naval officers that sailors could calm a rough sea by pouring oil on it. He favored daylight-saving time in summer. It struck him as silly and wasteful that people should "live much by candle-light and sleep by sunshine."

Franklin gave the world several other valuable inventions in addition to the lightning rod. The Franklin stove proved most useful to the people of his day. By arranging the flues in his own stove in an efficient way, he could make his sitting room twice as warm with one fourth as much fuel as he had been using. People everywhere appreciate his invention of bifocal eyeglasses most of all. This invention allowed both reading and distant lenses to be set in a single frame. Franklin discovered that disease flourishes in poorly ventilated rooms. Franklin also showed Americans how to improve acid soil by using lime. He refused to patent any of his inventions, or to use them for profit. He preferred to have them used freely as his contribution to the comfort and convenience of everyone.

Franklin quickly appreciated the inventive efforts of other people. He once said that he would like to return to earth a hundred years later to see what progress humanity had made. The first successful balloon flight took place in 1783, during Franklin's stay in Paris. Many bystanders scoffed at the new device and asked, "What good is it?" Franklin retorted, "What good is a newborn baby?"

Franklin's scientific work won him many high honors. The Royal Society of London elected him to membership, a rare honor for a person living in the colonies. Publishers translated his writings on electricity into French, German, and Italian. The great English statesman William Pitt told the House of Lords that Franklin ranked with Isaac Newton as a scientist. He called Franklin "an honor not to the English nation only but to human nature."

The Public Servant

The Plan of Union. In the spring of 1754, war broke out between the British and French in America. Franklin felt that the colonies had to unite for self-defense against the French and Indians. He printed the famous "Join or Die" cartoon in his newspaper. This cartoon showed a snake cut up into pieces that represented the colonies.

Franklin presented his Plan of Union at a conference of seven colonies at Albany, N.Y. This plan tried to bring the 13 colonies together in "one general government." The Plan of Union contained some of the ideas that were later included in the Constitution of the United States. The delegates at the Albany Congress approved Franklin's plan, but the colonies failed to ratify it. Said Franklin: "Everyone cries a union is absolutely necessary, but when it comes to the manner and form of the union, their weak noddles are perfectly distracted."

The war forced Franklin to turn his attention to the unfamiliar field of military matters. Early in 1755, General Edward Braddock and two British regiments arrived in America with orders to capture the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers met. The British had trouble finding horses and wagons for the expedition, and Franklin helped provide the necessary equipment. However, the French and Indians ambushed the British on the banks of the Monongahela River. Braddock was killed, and the British army was almost destroyed. In the meantime, Franklin raised volunteer colonial armies to defend frontier towns, and supervised construction of a fort at Weissport in Carbon County, Pennsylvania.

A delegate in London. In 1757, the Pennsylvania legislature sent Franklin to London to speak for the colony in a tax dispute with the proprietors (descendants of William Penn living in Great Britain). The proprietors controlled the governor of the colony, and would not allow it to pass any tax bill for defense unless their own estates were left tax-free. In 1760, Franklin finally succeeded in getting the British Parliament to adopt a measure that permitted the taxation of both the colonists and the proprietors. Franklin remained in Great Britain during most of the next 15 years as a sort of unofficial ambassador and spokesman for the American point of view.

A serious debate developed in Great Britain in the early 1760's at the end of the French and Indian War. The French, who lost the war, agreed to give the British either the French province of Canada or the French island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies. At the height of the argument, Franklin published a pamphlet that shrewdly compared the boundless future of Canada with the relative unimportance of Guadeloupe. Europeans and Americans read it carefully. Some historians believe that it influenced the British to choose Canada.

Franklin also took part in the fight over the Stamp Act. He seems to have been rather slow to recognize that the proposed measure threatened the American Colonies. But once he realized its dangers, he joined the struggle for repeal of the act. This fight led to one of the high points of his career. On Feb. 13, 1766, Franklin appeared before the House of Commons to answer a series of 174 questions dealing with "taxation without representation." Members of the House threw questions at him for nearly two hours. He answered briefly and clearly. His knowledge of taxation problems impressed everyone, and his reputation grew throughout Europe. The Stamp Act was repealed a short time later, and he received much of the credit.

Political relations between Great Britain and the colonies grew steadily worse. Franklin wanted America to remain in the British Empire, but only if the rights of the colonists could be recognized and protected. He pledged his entire fortune to pay for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party if the British government would agree to repeal its unjust tax on tea. The British ignored his proposal. Franklin realized that his usefulness in Great Britain had ended, and sadly sailed for home on March 21, 1775. Franklin had done everything possible to keep the American Colonies in the empire on the basis of mutual respect and good will.

The Statesman

Organizing the new nation. Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775, about two weeks after the Revolutionary War began. The next day, the people of Philadelphia chose him to serve in the Second Continental Congress. Franklin seldom spoke at the Congress, but became one of its most active and influential members. He submitted a proposed Plan of Union that contained ideas from his earlier Albany Plan of Union. This plan laid the groundwork for the Articles of Confederation. Franklin served on a commission that went to Canada in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the French Canadians to join the Revolutionary War. He worked on committees dealing with such varied matters as printing paper money, reorganizing the Continental Army, and finding supplies of powder and lead.

The Continental Congress chose Franklin as postmaster general in 1775 because of his experience as a colonial postmaster. The government directed him to organize a postal system quickly. He soon had mail service from Portland, Me., to Savannah, Ga. He gave his salary to the relief of wounded soldiers.

Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and was one of the document's signers. During the signing ceremonies, according to tradition, John Hancock warned his fellow delegates, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." "Yes," Franklin replied, "we must indeed all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Serving in France. Shortly after the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, Congress appointed Franklin as one of three commissioners sent to represent the United States in France. The war was not going well, and Congress realized an alliance with France might mean the difference between victory and defeat. Late in 1776, at the age of 70, Franklin set forth on the most important task of his life.

Franklin received a tremendous welcome in Paris. The French people were charmed by his kindness, his simple dress and manner, his wise and witty sayings, and his tact and courtesy in greeting the nobility and common people alike. Crowds ran after him in the streets. Poets wrote glowing verses in his honor. Portraits and busts of him appeared everywhere.

In spite of Franklin's popularity, the French government hesitated to make a treaty of alliance with the American Colonies. Such a treaty would surely mean war between France and Great Britain. So with tact, patience, and courtesy, Franklin set out to win the French government to the American cause. His chance came after British General John Burgoyne's army surrendered at Saratoga. The French were impressed by this American victory, and agreed to a treaty of alliance. The pact was signed on Feb. 6, 1778. Franklin then arranged transportation to America for French officers, soldiers, and guns. He managed to keep loans and gifts of money flowing to the United States. Many historians believe that without this aid the Americans could not have won their independence.

In 1778, Franklin was appointed minister to France. He helped draft the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. France, Great Britain, and Spain all had interests in the American Colonies, and Franklin found it difficult to arrange a treaty that satisfied them all. The treaty gave the new nation everything it could reasonably expect. Franklin was one of the signers of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

The Twilight Years

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1785. For the next two years, he served as president of the executive council of Pennsylvania. This office resembled that of a governor today. In 1787, Pennsylvania sent the 81-year-old Franklin to the Constitutional Convention. The delegates met in Independence Hall and drafted the Constitution of the United States. Age and illness kept Franklin from taking an active part. But his wisdom helped keep the convention from breaking up in failure. Franklin was the oldest delegate at the convention.

Franklin also helped the convention settle the bitter dispute between large and small states over representation in Congress. He did this by supporting the so-called Great Compromise. The compromise sought to satisfy both groups by setting up a two-house Congress. In his last formal speech to the convention, Franklin appealed to his fellow delegates for unanimous support of the Constitution.

Franklin's attendance at the Constitutional Convention was his last major public service. However, his interest in public affairs continued to the end of his life. He rejoiced in Washington's inauguration as the first President of the United States. He hoped that the example of the new nation would lead to a United States of Europe. In 1787, he was elected president of the first antislavery society in America. Franklin's last public act was to sign an appeal to Congress calling for the speedy abolition of slavery.

Franklin died on the night of April 17, 1790, at the age of 84. About 20,000 people honored him at his funeral. He was buried in the cemetery of Christ Church in Philadelphia beside his wife, who had died in 1774. Franklin accomplished much in many fields, but he began his will with the simple words: "I, Benjamin Franklin, printer ..." Franklin left $5,000 each to Boston and Philadelphia, part to be used for public works after 100 years, and the rest after 200 years. Part of this money has been used to establish the Franklin Technical Institute, a trade school in Boston, and the Franklin Institute, a scientific museum in Philadelphia.

His Place in History

Franklin led all the people of his time in his lifelong concern for the happiness, well-being, and dignity of humanity. George Washington spoke for a whole generation of Americans in a letter to Franklin in 1789: "If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain."

Franklin's name would almost certainly be on any list of the half-dozen greatest Americans. His face has appeared on postage stamps, and on the coins and paper money of the United States. Two Presidents of the United States proudly bore his name: Franklin Pierce and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Philadelphia has also revered the memory of its most famous citizen. The University of Pennsylvania named its athletic field in his honor. One of the showplaces of the city is the spacious Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Midway along the parkway stands the Franklin Institute, dedicated to popularizing the sciences that Franklin loved so well. This building contains the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, with its great statue of the seated philosopher by James Earle Fraser. The Franklin Institute has also set up a reconstruction of Franklin's printing shop, with his own printing presses.

Contributor: James H. Hutson, Ph.D., Chief, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

Questions

How did Franklin happen to become a printer?

What famous newspaper did Franklin establish?

In what ways did Franklin help Philadelphia become the most advanced city in the 13 colonies?

How did Franklin become one of the best-educated men of his time?

Why did Franklin run away to Philadelphia?

What was Franklin's formula for business success?

What is considered to be Franklin's greatest contribution as a colonial statesman?

What did Franklin do with his salary as postmaster general?

How many years did Franklin attend school?

What was Franklin's last major public service?

Additional Resources

Adler, David A. Benjamin Franklin. Holiday Hse., 1992. Younger readers.

Cohen, I. Bernard. Benjamin Franklin's Science. Harvard Univ. Pr., 1990.

Franklin, Benjamin. Writings. Lib. of Am., 1987.

Lemay, J. A. Leo. Reappraising Benjamin Franklin. Univ. of Del. Pr., 1993.

Meltzer, Milton. Benjamin Franklin. Watts, 1988.

Schoenbrun, David. Triumph in Paris: The Exploits of Benjamin Franklin. Harper, 1976.

Seavey, Ormond. Becoming Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and the Life. Penn. State Univ. Pr., 1988.

Stewart, Gail B. Benjamin Franklin. Lucent Bks., 1992. Younger readers.

Wright, Esmond, ed. Benjamin Franklin: His Life as He Wrote It. Harvard Univ. Pr., 1990.

Wright, Esmond. Franklin of Philadelphia. Harvard Univ. Pr., 1986.