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• Born: 17 January 1706
• Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
• Died: 17 April 1790 (pleurisy and old age)
• Best Known As: The Founding Father who wrote Poor Richard's Almanac

Benjamin Franklin was a hero of Colonial America and remains the most famously multi-talented figure in the nation's history. His accomplishments are too varied to sum up easily; they include signing the Declaration of Independence, publishing the famous Poor Richard's Almanack, serving as postmaster of Philadelphia, founding the first American fire insurance company, living in Paris as American ambassador to France, and inventing useful objects like the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and bifocal glasses. Franklin was born in Boston but at age 17 moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a printer, wrote pamphlets on public issues, and eventually bought The Pennsylvania Gazette. By 1732 he was publishing Poor Richard's Almanack, a blend of practical information, humor, and homilies like "A penny saved is a penny earned." He grew into Philadelphia's most famous citizen: a blend of businessman, inventor, philosopher, public planner, and civic cheerleader. As the Revolutionary War approached he wrote many pamphlets promoting union among the colonies; he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress, then spent much of the war in France as a diplomat, charming America's French allies. He helped negotiate and write the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, and in 1787 he signed the new U.S. Constitution. During all these years he never lost his interest in science, and in particular spent years studying the phenomenon of electricity. (In a famous 1752 experiment, he flew a kite with a key attached to prove that electricity exists in the atmosphere.) His personal memoirs were published after his death as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin coined dozens of popular sayings, including "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" and "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

• Genre: Classical
• Instruments: Harp, Guitar, Dulcimer

Biography

As a printer Franklin helped produce three hymn books including "Gottliche Liebes und Lobes Gethone," "Vorspiel der Neuen Welt" and "Jacobs Kampff und Ritter-Platz". He also printed a numer of copies of Isaac Watt's "Psalms and Hymns." Playing the harp, glass dulcimer, guitar and experimenting with musical glasses, Franklin used his knowledge to print a treatise on aesthetics. A string quartet bears his name but is more accurately ascribed to Ignace Pleyel. ~ Keith Johnson, All Music Guide

Benjamin Franklin

Library of Congress

[b. Boston Massachusetts, January 17, 1706, d. Philadelphia Pennsylvania, April 17, 1790]

Franklin, best known as a statesman and author, was also a first-class scientist and inventor. He made major contributions to the theory of electricity, including the first recognition of conservation of charge, a theory of static electricity, and proof that lightning is an electrical phenomenon. He also recognized the importance of ocean currents and had the Gulf Stream mapped for the first time.

(b Boston, 17 Jan 1706; d Philadelphia, 17 April 1790). American statesman, scientist and amateur musician. At his shop in Philadelphia he printed three hymnbooks (1730-36) for the Ephrata Community. He played the harp, guitar and glass dulcimer, and invented an improved form of Musical glasses or ‘armonica’. He also wrote a treatise on music aesthetics.

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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a leader of America's Revolutionary generation. His character and thought were shaped by a blending of Puritan heritage, Enlightenment philosophy, and the New World environment.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston into a pious Puritan household. His forebears had come to New England in 1683 to avoid the zealous Anglicanism of England's Restoration era. Franklin's father was a candle-maker and skillful mechanic, but, his son said, his "great Excellence lay in a sound Understanding, and solid Judgment." Benjamin praised his mother as "a discreet and virtuous Woman" who raised a family of 13 children. In honoring his parents and in his affection for New England ways, Franklin demonstrated the permanence of his Puritan heritage.

His Philosophy

Rejecting the Calvinist theology of his father, Franklin opened himself to the more secular world view of Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke. He read the deist philosophers, virtually memorized the English paper Spectator, and otherwise gave allegiance to the Enlightenment. Like his favorite author, Joseph Addison, Franklin sought to add the good sense and tolerance of the new philosophy to his Puritan earnestness. Thus, by the time he left home at the age of 17, his character and attitude toward life had already achieved a basic orientation.

The circumstances of his flight from home also reveal essential qualities. Denied a formal education by his family's poverty, Franklin became an apprentice to his brother James, printer of a Boston newspaper. While learning the technical part of the business, Franklin read every word that came into the shop and was soon writing clever pieces signed "Silence Dogood," satirizing the Boston establishment. When the authorities imprisoned James for his criticisms, Benjamin continued the paper himself. Having thus learned to resist oppression, he refused to suffer his brother's petty tyrannies and in 1723 ran away to Philadelphia.

Successful Businessman

Penniless and without friends in the new city, Franklin soon demonstrated his enterprise and skill as a printer and gained employment. In 1724 he went to England, where he quickly became a master printer, sowed wild oats, and lived among the aspiring writers of London. He returned to Philadelphia and soon had his own press, publishing a newspaper (Pennsylvania Gazette), Poor Richard's Almanack, and a good share of the public printing of the province. He became clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly and postmaster of Philadelphia, at the same time operating a bookshop and entering partnerships with printers from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. He was so successful that at the age of 42 he retired. He received a comfortable income from his business for 20 more years.

Franklin philosophized about his success and applied his understanding to civic enterprises. The philosophy appears in the adages of "Poor Richard" and in the scheme for moral virtue Franklin explained later in his famous Autobiography. He extolled hard work, thriftiness, and honesty as the poor man's means for escaping the prison of want and explained how any man could develop an exemplary character with practice and perseverance. Though sayings like "Sloth maketh all things difficult, but Industry all easy" do not amount to a profound philosophy of life (as Franklin knew perfectly well), they do suggest useful first steps for self-improvement. The huge circulation of both the sayings of "Poor Richard" (under the title "The Way to Wealth") and the Autobiography, plus their distorted use by miserly and small-minded apostles of thrift, led later to scathing assaults on Franklin by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and D. H. Lawrence - but they in fact criticize a caricature, not the whole Franklin.

Civic Leader

Franklin became involved in civic improvement in 1727 by organizing the Junto, a club of aspiring tradesmen like himself, that met each week. In the unformed society of Philadelphia it seemed obvious to these men that their success in business and improvement of the city's life required the same thing: plans and institutions to deal with needs cooperatively. Thus, Franklin led the Junto in sponsoring civic improvements: a library, a fire company, a learned society, a college, an insurance company, and a hospital. He also made effective proposals for a militia; for paving, cleaning, and lighting the streets; and for a night watch. His simple but influential social belief that men of goodwill, organizing and acting together, could deal effectively with civic concerns remained with him throughout his life.

Work in Science

Franklin next turned to science. He had already invented the Pennsylvania fireplace (soon called the Franklin stove). His attention fastened primarily on electricity. He read the new treatises on the subject and acquired ingenious equipment. In his famous kite experiment, proving that lightning is a form of electricity, he linked laboratory experiments with static electricity to the great universal force and made a previously mysterious and terrifying natural phenomenon understandable. Franklin's letters concerning his discoveries and theories about electricity to the Royal Society in London brought him fame. The invention of the lightning rod, which soon appeared on buildings all over the world, added to his stature. His scientific ingenuity, earning him election to the Royal Society in 1756, also found outlet in the theory of heat, charting the Gulf Stream, ship design, meteorology, and the invention of bifocal lenses and a harmonica. He insisted that the scientific approach, by making clear what was unknown as well as what was known, would "help to make a vain man humble" and, by directing the experiments and insights of others to areas of ignorance and mystery, would greatly expand human knowledge. Franklin the scientist, then, seemed to epitomize the 18th-century faith in the capacity of men to understand themselves and the world in which they lived.

Political Career

Competing with science for Franklin's attention was his growing involvement in politics. His election in 1751 to the Pennsylvania Assembly began nearly 40 years as a public official. He used his influence at first mainly to further the cause of his various civic enterprises. But he also became a leader in the long-dominant Quaker party, opposing the Proprietary party, which sought to preserve the power of the Penn family in affairs of Pennsylvania. Franklin devised legislative strategy and wrote powerful resolves on behalf of the Assembly, denying Proprietary exemption from taxation and otherwise defending the right of the elected representatives of the people to regulate their own affairs.

Colonial Rights within the Empire

At first Franklin had not the slightest thought about America's separation from Great Britain. He had grown up with allegiance to Britain and had a deep appreciation of the culture of the country of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Joseph Addison, and Alexander Pope. In 1751 he celebrated the rapid increase of colonial population as a great "accession of power to the British Empire," a big and happy family wherein the prosperity of the parent and the growth of the children were mutually beneficial.

Franklin expressed his patriotism by proposing a Plan of Union within the empire at Albany in 1754, and a year later in giving extensive service to Gen. Edward Braddock's expedition to recapture Ft. Duquesne from the French. To defend the empire during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Franklin persuaded the Quaker Assembly to pass the first militia law in Pennsylvania, appropriate money for defense, and appoint commissioners (including himself) to carry on full-scale war. As the war progressed, he worked with British commanders to win a North American empire for Britain. For 3 decades or more Franklin allied himself in thought and deed with such men as William Pitt, who conceived of Britain as a vital, freedom-extending realm as dear (and useful) to its subjects in Boston and Philadelphia as to those in London or Bristol.

Even in this patriotism of empire, however, the seeds of disaffection appeared. The Albany plan, Franklin noted, dividing power between the king and the colonial assemblies, was disapproved by the Crown "as having placed too much weight in the democratic part of the constitution, and [by] every assembly as having allowed too much to [Royal] Prerogative." Franklin also thought it incredibly selfish for the proprietor of Pennsylvania to try to avoid taxation of his vast lands. He sided, he declared in 1756, with "the people of this province … generally of the middling sort." Thus, when he went to England in 1757 as agent of the Assembly, he was alarmed to hear the president of the Privy Council declare: "You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend the King's instructions to his governors are not laws…. But those instructions … are … the Law of the Land; for the King is the Legislator of the Colonies." Though Franklin worked within the empire to resist this presumption, it was clear from the start that if it continued to dominate, Franklin's empire loyalty would wither and die.

Franklin lived in England from 1757 to 1762, seeking aid in restraining Proprietary power in Pennsylvania, meanwhile enjoying English social and intellectual life. He attended meetings of the Royal Society, heard great orchestras play the works of George Frederick Handel, made grand tours of the Continent, and was awarded honorary doctor's degrees by St. Andrews (1759) and Oxford (1762).

Back in America for nearly 2 years (1762-1764), Franklin traveled through the Colonies as deputy postmaster general for North America. In 20 years Franklin vastly improved postal service and at the same time made his position lucrative. He also continued his aid to poorer members of his family, especially his sister, and to the family of his wife, the former Deborah Read, whom he had married in 1730. They had two children, Frankie, who died at 4, and Sally, who married Richard Bache. Deborah Franklin also reared her husband's illegitimate son, William, often his father's close companion, who was appointed governor of New Jersey and was later to be notable as a loyalist during the Revolution. Franklin considered Deborah, who died in 1774, a good wife, mother, and helpmate, though she did not share his intellectual interests or even much of his social life.

Politics occupied most of Franklin's busy months at home. He opposed the bloody revenges frontiersmen visited on innocent Native Americans in the wake of Chief Pontiac's Conspiracy, and he campaigned to further restrict the proprietor's power. On this and other issues Franklin lost his seat in the Assembly (after 13 consecutive victories) in an especially scurrilous campaign. His Quaker party retained enough power, however, to return him to England as agent, commissioned especially to petition that Pennsylvania be taken over as a royal colony - a petition Franklin set aside when the perils of royal government loomed ever larger.

More Radical Position

Franklin played a central role in the great crises that led to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He first advised obedience to the Stamp Act. But learning of the violent protest against it in America, he stiffened his own opposition, notably in a dramatic appearance before Parliament in 1766, when he outlined, plainly and bluntly, American insistence on substantial self-government. Encouraged by repeal of the act, Franklin again expressed his faith in the grand prospects for America within the empire and worked with Pitt, Lord Camden, and other Englishmen who wanted to liberalize both government at home and relations with the Colonies.

Yet Franklin mounted a strong propaganda assault on the Townshend Duties of 1767. In fact, Franklin's position was increasingly untenable. He was in countless official, personal, and sentimental ways committed to the British Empire, but he was more committed to the life-style he knew in America and which he now began to record in his Autobiography. The ideal solution, of course, was to find fulfillment for the life-style under the British flag. He only slowly realized that, at least under the policies of George III and Lord North, the two were incompatible.

Franklin's personal fame, as well as his appointment as agent for Georgia (1768) and for Massachusetts (1770), made him the foremost American spokesman in Britain for 10 crucial years, from 1765 to 1775. Protesting the Tea Act in 1773, he wrote two of his most skillful and famous political satires, An Edict by the King of Prussia and Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One. These were merely the best of hundreds displaying Franklin's clever pen in aid of his chosen causes.

In 1774-1775 Franklin's agency in England came to an unhappy end. His friends in Massachusetts, against his instructions, published letters of Governor Thomas Hutchinson that Franklin had obtained in confidence. Exposed as an apparently dishonest schemer, Franklin was chastised before the Privy Council in 1774 and simultaneously deprived of his postmaster general's office. Then, in danger of being imprisoned as a traitor, Franklin continued to work with Pitt and others for conciliation, but the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts, and the buildup of British troops in America doomed such efforts. When Franklin left England in March 1775, he was sure that "the extream corruption … in this old rotten State" would ensure "more Mischief than Benefit from a closer Union" between England and the Colonies.

The Revolutionary

In the next 18 months in America, Franklin reveled in the "glorious public virtue" of his compatriots. He served on the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety and in the Continental Congress, submitted articles of confederation for the united colonies, and helped draft a new constitution for Pennsylvania. He even went to Montreal to entice Canada to join the new union. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was among those who readily subscribed his name to it - at the age of 70 he had become a fervent revolutionist.

Franklin's skill was most in demand, though, as a diplomat to secure desperately needed aid for the new nation. In October 1776, appointed commissioner to France, he embarked with his two grandchildren. In France he began the most amazing personal success story in the history of diplomacy. His journey to Paris was a triumphal procession, and in the capital the literary and scientific community greeted him as a living embodiment of all the virtues the philosophes extolled.

Franklin played the role of the simple Quaker, exalted by his plainness amid the gaudy pomp of the court of Louis XVI. In a dramatic encounter at the French Academy, Franklin and the aged Voltaire embraced amid cheers. French intellectuals lionized Franklin, who, still a minister of an unrecognized country, established residence in the suburb of Auteuil, where he created friendships that became part of the legend of Franklin among the ladies of Paris. As usual, Franklin wrote witty letters, printed bagatelles, told stories, and otherwise displayed his brilliant personality.

Diplomatic Tasks in France

Franklin's diplomatic tasks proved more difficult. Though France was anxious that England be humbled, it could not afford openly to aid the American rebels unless success seemed probable. For a year (1777) Franklin worked behind the scenes to hasten war supplies across the Atlantic, block British diplomacy, and ingratiate himself with the French foreign minister and others who might help the United States. He also worked with the other American commissioners, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, as those two strange compatriots quarreled with increasing bitterness. In December 1777 news of the American victory at Saratoga persuaded Louis XVI and his ministers to enter into an alliance with the United States, finally signed by Franklin and the other commissioners. Lee and Deane soon returned, quarreling, to America, leaving Franklin behind as the first American minister to the court of Versailles.

For 7 years Franklin was the premier American representative in Europe, conducting normal diplomacy and acting as purchasing agent, recruiting officer, loan negotiator, admiralty court, and intelligence chief. Nearly 80, Franklin carried his immense and varied burden effectively and in a way that retained French goodwill. He helped get French armies and navies on their way to North America, continued his efforts to supply American armies, outfitted John Paul Jones and numerous American privateers, and secured virtually all the outside aid that came to the American rebels.

Peace Commissioner

When, after Yorktown (1781), peace with independence became possible, Franklin made the first contact with British emissaries. During the summer of 1782 as the other peace commissioners, John Adams and John Jay, made their way to Paris, Franklin set terms close to those finally agreed to: independence, guaranteed fishing rights, evacuation of all British forces, and a western boundary on the Mississippi. Though Franklin insisted on working closely with French negotiators, he never subordinated American to French interests as his critics have claimed. In fact, the subtle Franklin, the intrepid Adams, and the resourceful Jay made an ideal team, winning for the United States a peace treaty of genuine national independence in 1783.

Viewing America's place in the world as his mission to France drew to a close, Franklin combined realism with idealism. "Our firm connection with France," he noted, "gives us weight with England, and respect throughout Europe." Thus balancing between the great nations, Franklin thought "a few years of peace will improve, will restore and increase our strength; but our future safety will depend on our union and our virtue." He stated many times there was "no such thing as a good war or a bad peace." Not the least isolationist or aggressive, he thought the peaceful needs of the United States required it to trade and cooperate honorably with nations all over the world.

Franklin left France in 1785 and landed in Philadelphia to the cheers of his countrymen. Honored as a living sage, he accepted election for 3 years as president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, became president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and resumed his activity in the American Philosophical Society, the University of Pennsylvania, and other civic projects. Though suffering from a physical disorder, he also maintained his large correspondence, wrote essays, and finished the last half of his Autobiography.

Framing of a New Government

Franklin's most notable service, however, was his attendance at the daily sessions of the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787. Too infirm to speak much in debate and less creative in political philosophy than some of his younger colleagues, he bolstered the confidence of the convention and, through good humor and suggestions for compromise, helped prevent its disruption in animosity. He gave decisive support to the "Great Compromise" over representation and dozens of times calmed volatile tempers and frayed nerves. At the convention's close, he asked each member, who like himself might not entirely approve of the Constitution, to "doubt a little of his own infallibility" and sign the document to give it a chance as the best frame of government human ingenuity could at that time produce. His last public service was to urge ratification of the Constitution and to approve the inauguration of the new government under his longtime friend George Washington. Franklin died peacefully on April 17, 1790.

Further Reading

Franklin's writings are in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (10 vols., 1905-1907), and Leonard Labaree and others, eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (11 vols. to date, 1959-1968) and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1964). The best biography is Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (1938). For special studies see Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of Franklin (1942); Verner W. Crane, Benjamin Franklin and a Rising People (1954), on Franklin's politics; Gerald Stourzh, Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy (1954); I. Bernard Cohen, Franklin and Newton (1956), on Franklin's scientific work; Alfred O. Aldridge, Franklin andHis French Contemporaries (1957); Ralph L. Ketcham, Benjamin Franklin (1965), for Franklin's thought; and Claude A. Lopez, Franklin and the Ladies of Paris (1966).

(1706-90) US politician and scientist. Franklin trained as a printer, and gained great popularity by the homespun philosophy of Poor Richard's Almanack (1732-67). Homespun philosophy matched a homespun personal style, which Franklin wielded to great effect in London and Paris, where he was sent as the first ambassador of the independent United States. As with Gandhi, however, the calculated homespun style concealed a sophisticated intelligence, which Franklin put to work not only in science (through his invention of the lightning-conductor) but also in politics, notably as the oldest and most revered member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

For more information on Benjamin Franklin, visit Britannica.com.

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-90) Although Franklin's distinction rests on his work as a scientist and statesman, his homely moral and political philosophy, particularly as expounded in Poor Richard's Almanack (1733-58), has been extremely influential as an expression of a folksy, democratic virtue ethic.

(1706-1790), newspaperman, scientist, inventor, philosopher, politician, and diplomat. Born in Boston, the son of a soap maker, Franklin was apprenticed to his printer brother James at twelve. He was soon contributing witty essays to James's newspaper under various pen names.

In 1723 he moved to Philadelphia and launched the Pennsylvania Gazette, which rapidly became the most successful newspaper in the colonies. His Poor Richard's Almanack, which he published from 1733 to 1758, was studded with wry aphorisms Franklin borrowed from numerous sources and frequently rewrote. He helped launch projects to pave, clean, and light Philadelphia's streets and founded the American Philosophical Society, the first circulating library in America, and an academy that grew into the University of Pennsylvania. In 1743 he invented a heat-efficient stove to warm houses. Retiring from newspapering in 1748, he turned to the study of electricity. His observations, including his famous experiment with a kite to verify the identity of electricity and lightning, won him world fame.

Already a leader in Pennsylvania's politics, Franklin went to England in 1757 to represent the colony in its quarrel with the descendants of William Penn. He remained there until 1775, becoming agent for several other colonies and de facto ambassador for all thirteen. At first a strong believer in the value of a united empire, he grew disillusioned with England's corrupt politics and aristocratic society, though he made lasting friendships with many prominent men. In 1765 American objections to the Stamp Act caught him by surprise, but he quickly joined the opponents. His testimony before Parliament helped persuade the members to repeal the measure.

Thereafter Franklin's antagonism to Britain's determination to tax Americans deepened. He helped purloin letters of Massachusetts's governor, Thomas Hutchinson, calling for "an abridgment of what are called English liberties." Sent to Boston, these caused a political sensation. He returned to America in 1775 and stunned many of his friends and relatives, in particular his son William, the royal governor of New Jersey, by saying he was for independence. William shocked his father in turn by becoming a Loyalist.

Franklin worked with Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and served in the Continental Congress before sailing in 1776 to become ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. Dressing as a humble Quaker, he became a figure of myth and romance to a rapt French public. His popularity made it difficult for the king's wary government to resist the treaty of alliance they signed in 1778, rescuing the faltering Revolution from bankruptcy. For the next five years, Franklin was a pivotal figure on the European side of the struggle. He soothed French doubts about America, extracted loans, urged influential English friends to push for an early peace, and finally negotiated, with John Jay and John Adams, a separate treaty that won, among many concessions, the Northwest Territory and the trans-Allegheny West.

He returned to America in 1784. Although few of his ideas, such as a unicameral legislature, were adopted at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin played a major role in the compromises that created the final document. His last public act was a memorial to Congress urging the abolition of slavery, which he signed shortly before his death. That farewell gesture epitomizes the mature Franklin, a far more complex and significant figure than the simplistic image of the success-hungry young businessman in his Autobiography. In many ways Americans have yet to grasp the full range of his accomplishments as a Founding Father.

Bibliography:

Thomas Fleming, The Man Who Dared the Lightning (1971); Leonard Larabee et al., eds., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1964); Claude Ann Lopez, Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris (1966).

Author:

Thomas Fleming

See also Constitution; Continental Congresses; Declaration of Independence; Deism Paris, Treaty of (1783); Philadelphia Convention; Revolution.

1706–90, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, b. Boston. The only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, he is best remembered in the United States as a patriot and diplomat.

Printer and Writer

The son of a tallow chandler and soapmaker, Franklin left school at 10 years of age to help his father. He then was apprenticed to his half brother James, a printer and publisher of the New England Courant, to which young Ben secretly contributed. After much disagreement he left his brother's employment and went (1723) to Philadelphia to work as a printer. Industry and thrift—qualities he was to praise later—helped him to better himself.

After a sojourn in London (1724–26), he returned and in 1729 acquired an interest in the Pennsylvania Gazette. As owner and editor after 1730, he made the periodical popular. His common sense philosophy and his neatly turned phrases won public attention in the Gazette, in the later General Magazine, and especially in his Poor Richard's Almanack, which he published from 1732 to 1757. Many sayings of Poor Richard, praising prudence, common sense, and honesty, became standard American proverbs.

Franklin also interested himself in selling books, established a circulating library, organized a debating club that developed into the American Philosophical Society, helped to establish (1751) an academy that eventually became the Univ. of Pennsylvania, and brought about civic reforms. His writings are still widely known today, especially his autobiography (covering only his early years), which is generally considered one of the finest autobiographies in any language and has appeared in innumerable editions.

Scientist

Franklin had steadily extended his own knowledge by study of foreign languages, philosophy, and science. He repeated the experiments of other scientists and showed his usual practical bent by inventing such diverse things as the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses, and a glass harmonica (which he called an armonica; see harmonica 2). The phenomenon of electricity interested him deeply, and in 1748 he turned his printing business over to his foreman, intending to devote his life to science. His experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm, which showed that lightning is an electrical discharge (but which he may not have personally performed), and his invention of the lightning rod were among a series of investigations that won him recognition from the leading scientists in England and on the Continent.

Statesman

Diplomat from Pennsylvania

Franklin held local public offices and served long (1753–74) as deputy postmaster general of the colonies. As such he reorganized the postal system, making it both efficient and profitable. His status as a public figure grew steadily. A Pennsylvania delegate to the Albany Congress (1754), he proposed there a plan of union for the colonies, which was accepted by the delegates but later rejected by both the provincial assemblies and the British government. He worked for the British cause in the French and Indian War, especially by providing transportation for the ill-fated expedition led by Edward Braddock against Fort Duquesne. Franklin was a leader of the popular party in Pennsylvania against the Penn family, who were the proprietors, and in 1757 he was sent to England to present the case against the Penns. He won (1760) for the colony the right to tax the Penn estates but advised moderation in applying the right.

He returned to America for two years (1762–64) but was in England when the Stamp Act caused a furor. Again he showed prudent moderation; he protested the act but asked the colonists to obey the law, thus losing some popularity in the colonies until he stoutly defended American rights at the time of the debates on repeal of the act. He was made agent for Georgia (1768), New Jersey (1769), and Massachusetts (1770) and seriously considered making his home in England, where his scientific attainments, his brilliant mind, and his social gifts of wit and urbanity had gained him a high place.

Revolutionary Leader

As trouble between the British government and the colonies grew with the approach of the American Revolution, Franklin's deep love for his native land and his devotion to individual freedom brought (1775) him back to America. There, while his illegitimate son, William Franklin, was becoming a leader of the Loyalists, Benjamin Franklin became one of the greatest statesmen of the American Revolution and of the newborn nation. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was appointed postmaster general, and was sent to Canada with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton to persuade the people of Canada to join the patriot cause. He was appointed (1776) to the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, which he signed.

Late in 1776 he sailed to France to join Arthur Lee and Silas Deane in their diplomatic efforts for the new republic. Franklin, with a high reputation in France well supported by his winning presence, did much to gain French recognition of the new republic in 1778. Franklin helped to direct U.S. naval operations and was a successful agent for the United States in Europe—the sole one after suspicions and quarrels caused Congress to annul the powers of the other American commissioners.

He was chosen (1781) as one of the American diplomats to negotiate peace with Great Britain and laid the groundwork for the treaty before John Jay and John Adams arrived. British naval victory in the West Indies made the final treaty less advantageous to the United States than Franklin's original draft. The Treaty of Paris was, in contradiction of the orders of Congress, concluded in 1783 without the concurrence of France, because Jay and Adams distrusted the French.

Constitutional Convention Delegate

Franklin returned in 1785 to the United States and was made president of the Pennsylvania executive council. The last great service rendered to his country by this “wisest American,” as he is sometimes called, was his part in the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787. Although his proposals for a single-chamber congress and a weak executive council were rejected, he helped to direct the compromise that brought the Constitution of the United States into being. Though not completely satisfied with the finished product, he worked earnestly for its ratification.

Bibliography

See the definitive edition of Franklin's works, ed. by L. W. Labaree et al. (37 vol. so far, 1959–2003) See biographies by J. Parton (1864, repr. 1971), S. G. Fisher (1899), P. L. Ford (1899, repr. 1972), B. Faý (1933, repr. 1969), C. Van Doren (1938, repr. 1973), P. W. Conner (1965), A. O. Aldridge (1965), T. J. Fleming (1971), H. W. Brands (2000), E. S. Morgan (2002), W. Isaacson (2003), and J. A. L. Lemay (2 vol. so far, 2005–); I. B. Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Science (1990); T. Tucker, Bolt of Fate (2003); G. S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (2004); S. Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America (2005); P. Dray, Stealing God's Thunder (2005); J. Weinberger, Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (2005).

(1706-1790)

1722	The Dogood Papers. Franklin's first publication is a series of articles published in his brother James's newspaper, the New England Courant. He attacks the Puritan establishment in general and Cotton Mather in particular, commenting on topics such as hoop petticoats, drunkenness, and freedom of thought. Using the pseudonym "Silence Dogood," Franklin assumes the identity of a levelheaded goodwife, a break from James Franklin's editorial policy of never permitting a woman to stand as the voice of reason.
1725	A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. Written while abroad in London and published anonymously, Franklin's first pamphlet questions the existence of God. This satirical work amounts to an attack on contemporary religion in the English-speaking world. Franklin would quickly regret the work and attempted to destroy the one hundred copies printed. Some hold that the young Franklin was merely showing off his intellectual prowess in the treatise, doing nothing more than playing devil's advocate.
1726	Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia. Franklin describes his Atlantic crossing, a fascinating record of transatlantic travel and Franklin's interests.
1727	The Junto Club. Founded by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, this debate and social club is restricted to twelve of his friends, all of them workingmen. In 1731, it would form the first public library in America.
1728	Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion. Franklin produces a personal devotional book recording his spiritual beliefs, a mixture of deistic and polytheistical tenets.
1729	A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. Franklin publishes the first of his economic treatises that proposes an economic stimulus by increasing the money supply.
1730	"A Witch Trial at Mount Holly." Franklin's satire reports on a ludicrous witchcraft trial, playing on the contemporary suspicion that witchcraft was practiced among the Quakers. The English Gentleman's Magazine would report details from the fanciful trial as fact.
1731	The Library Company of Philadelphia. The first subscription library in America. Benjamin Franklin, as the Library Company's first president, writes its articles of association on July 1.
1732	"On Literary Style." Franklin's essay, published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, contains his definition of a good writing style: "smooth, clear and short."
1743	American Philosophical Society. Established in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin, who became its first president, the scientific society is the first of its kind in America.
1745	"Advice to a Young Man on Choosing a Mistress." Franklin's witty satire concerning a rake's perspective on sex argues the advantages of an older mistress over a younger one.
1747	"The Speech of Polly Baker." Published anonymously in the General Advertiser, Franklin's monologue by a woman called into court for her fifth illegitimate offspring is a witty attack on sexual hypocrisy. Widely accepted at the time as a true account, it has subsequently been called the first American short story.
1749	Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. Franklin's education proposals would result in the establishment in 1751 of the Philadelphia Academy (later the University of Pennsylvania).
1751	Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Franklin kept an active correspondence with many of the leading figures in science. His scientific findings are deemed so important that his letters, specifically those to British naturalist Peter Collinson (1694-1768), are published in this volume. In 1752, Franklin would devise and perform his kite experiment proving that lightning is electric. He would report on his later findings in Supplemental Experiments and Observations (1753) and New Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1754).
1754	"Plan of the Union." Appointed as a delegate to the Albany Congress, Franklin calls for official coordination among the colonies. While the state legislatures fail to approve it, the plan establishes Franklin as an advocate for the American colonies.
1758	Father Abraham's Speech. Franklin's preface to his final edition of Poor Richard's Almanack is a collection of aphorisms from previous almanacs, outlining the recipe for a successful financial life. It proves to be Franklin's most popular work, widely reprinted and translated as The Way to Wealth.
1760	The Interest of Great Britain Considered with Regard to Her Colonies. This collection of essays states that the colonies should be treated as vital and equal partners of the imperial system since they are economically and militarily important to England.
1764	A Narrative of the Late Massacres. In one of Franklin's most powerful and indignant works, he denounces the Paxton Boys, a gang that had murdered a band of peaceful Indians, and calls for their prosecution. Riots ensue, and Franklin organizes a successful defense of other Indians. Franklin also publishes Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs and Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway in support of a royal charter for Pennsylvania to replace the proprietary government.
1768	Causes of the American Discontents before 1768. Franklin summarizes relations between Britain and the American colonies.
1771	Autobiography. Franklin begins to write his most important work, a chronicle of his life that took him nearly twenty years to finish. He writes the first five chapters in England in 1771, resuming again thirteen years later (1784-1785) in Paris, and once again in 1788 in the United States. The book ends in 1757, when Franklin is fifty-one years old.
1772	The Sommersett Case and the Slave Trade. Having come to believe that slavery is inherently evil and after freeing his two slaves during the 1760s, Franklin produces his first writing against the institution of slavery.
1773	Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One. Franklin's essay is a thinly disguised satire of Britain's colonial policies, summarizing American grievances. As his satire circulates in England, Franklin writes to his sister, "I have held up a Looking-Glass in which some of the Ministers may see their ugly faces, and the Nation its Injustice."
1775	Proposed Articles of Confederation. Franklin presents his plan for an American nation called "The United Colonies of North America," with a Congress of limited powers. The Second Continental Congress would not accept it.
1779	Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces. The first compilation of Franklin's nonscientific writings is published in London.
1782	"Information to Those Who Would Remove to America." An essay describing life in the colonies as superior to life in Europe due to less poverty and more land.
1790	"Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the Slave Trade, March 23, 1790." Written shortly before his death, Franklin's last public writing satirizes proslavery rhetoric in Congress. Ibrahim, a Muslim who kidnaps Christians along the African coast, rejects a petition to abolish the enslavement of whites.
1791	Mémoires de la vie privée... écrits par lui-même. The first edition of Franklin's Autobiography, his only book, appears in France. The first American edition would appear in 1818.

(1706-1790)

A versatile statesman, printer, inventor, scientist, and diplomat, Franklin was also associated with the occult doctrine of his time, although his attitude was largely skeptical. He was familiar with astrology, and while at college he calculated the horoscope of another student named Titus Leads, allegedly predicting the exact time of his death.

In 1784 Franklin was a member of the committee of the Academie des Sciences in Paris, which reported on the phenomena of Franz Anton Mesmer during the furor created by animal magnetism. Although certain aspects of animal magnetism were acknowledged by the committee, the report attributed these to other causes. Franklin associated with Rosicrucians and became a Freemason in February 1730, a member of the Lodge of the Nine Muses, which was said to have influenced the French Revolution.

A patriot, diplomat, author, printer, scientist, and inventor in the eighteenth century; one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an important early researcher in electricity and proposed the modern model of electrical current. He also demonstrated that lightning was electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm and allowing it to be struck by lightning. Franklin used this discovery to invent the lightning rod. He produced other inventions as well, such as bifocal eyeglasses and the efficient Franklin stove. Particularly notable among his writings are The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard's Almanack. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and negotiated with France and Britain on behalf of the newly formed government of the United States. Toward the end of his life, he took part in the Constitutional Convention.

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Franklin warned his fellow patriots that their venture, if unsuccessful, could lead to their execution for treason: “We must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately.”

As the only person to have signed the three most significant founding documents of the United States—the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Paris (1783), and the U.S. Constitution (1787)—Benjamin Franklin holds a revered place in the history of U.S. law. Through his great success as a newspaper publisher, journalist, writer, civic leader, scientist, politician, and diplomat, and as an inventor, Franklin became an international celebrity in his day and an icon of the American character to later generations.

Franklin's varied career had a lasting effect on U.S. law and politics. As a leading local figure, he established and shaped many of the fundamental institutions of Philadelphia and colonial Pennsylvania. Before the Revolutionary War (1775-83), Franklin served as envoy to Great Britain for several colonies. Though he first advocated reconciliation with Britain, he eventually supported the cause of American independence. He was assigned the task of securing an alliance with France during the war, and his political skill and prestige helped gain vital support for his young country as it fought the world's greatest military power. After the war, Franklin used his diplomatic ingenuity to negotiate a successful peace treaty with Britain. Franklin also helped persuade the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to reach important compromises on the particulars of the Constitution, and his support of that document greatly improved its chances of ratification.

Franklin was born January 17, 1706, in Boston, into a devout Puritan household. His only formal education consisted of two years of grammar school, after which he began work for his father, who was a tallow chandler, or candle maker. At age twelve, he was apprenticed to his half-brother, James Franklin, a printer and the founder of the New England Courant, the fourth newspaper established in the British colonies. In his teenage years, Franklin began to improve himself by reading on his own, including the works of such authors as John Bunyan, Plutarch, Daniel Defoe, Cotton Mather, Joseph Addison, and John Locke. Franklin employed his literary talents early, and wrote for the Courant articles satirizing Boston life and politics. He became a manager of the newspaper, but then abruptly moved to Philadelphia in 1723 after disagreements with his brother.

Franklin arrived in Philadelphia at age seventeen with only one Dutch dollar and a copper shilling in his pocket. He found work in a print shop and prospered enough to start his own printing business in 1728. In 1730, Franklin became sole owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he transformed from a failing enterprise into a very influential newspaper. He also had success in other publishing ventures, including Poor Richard's Almanack (1732-57), an annual that presented practical information, satire, proverbs, and aphorisms. In 1730, Franklin married Deborah Read, with whom he had two children. He also had two illegitimate children, one of whom, William Franklin, later became governor of New Jersey.

In 1727, still a rising young businessman, Franklin formed a club of tradesmen called the Junto, which met each week for discussion. This group became highly influential in the life of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, it founded a circulating library, the first of its kind in the colonies, in Philadelphia in 1731; the American Philosophical Society in 1743; a city hospital in 1751; and an academy that developed into the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin led the group in making many other civic improvements as well.

In 1748, now wealthy from his printing and publishing interests, Franklin retired from business. He devoted the rest of his life to natural philosophy, writing, politics, and diplomacy. In the area of natural philosophy, or science, Franklin's ingenuity and curiosity gained him world renown as both an inventor and a theoretician. He designed an improved stove, later dubbed the Franklin stove, that was widely used, as well as bifocal glasses and a new type of clock. He began to study electricity in 1746. His ideas and experiments on this subject— including the famous experiment that involved a kite with a metal key attached to it—identified the electrical nature of lightning. His work with electricity gained him many honorary degrees, including membership in the Royal Society in 1756 and in the French Academy of Sciences in 1772. He also developed a theory of heat absorption and was among the first to describe the Gulf Stream ocean current.

Franklin's study of natural philosophy was interrupted by an involvement in politics and diplomacy that ultimately dominated the last part of his life. In Pennsylvania, he was a member of the Quaker party, which sought to democratize the colony's politics and wrest power from its original founders, the Penn family. He served as a representative to the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1751 to 1764. In 1754, he represented Pennsylvania at the Albany Congress, which had been called to unite the colonies in a war against the French and Indians. There, he unsuccessfully presented the Plan of Union, which would have established partial self-government for the colonies. The British did not approve of Franklin's plan because they felt it gave too much power to the colonies, and the colonial assemblies rejected it because they felt it gave the British monarch too much power. Franklin also shared with another person the office of deputy postmaster for the colonies, from 1753 to 1774. In this office, he did a great deal to increase the frequency and efficiency of mail delivery.

Franklin began a long and successful diplomatic career when he went to England in 1757 as the agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He remained in Britain through 1762 and met many leading figures of British society, including the philosopher David Hume and the author Dr. Samuel Johnson. After spending two more years in Pennsylvania, he returned to England in 1764 to serve again as the Pennsylvania Assembly's agent, and remained in Britain as an agent for various colonies in turn, until 1775. During his years abroad, he witnessed firsthand the growing rift between Britain and the colonies.

In the controversy over the 1765 Stamp Act, Franklin emerged as the American colonies' chief spokesperson and defender. The act imposed a tax on publications and papers and provoked an outrage in the colonies. As the first of a series of major disputes between the colonies and Britain, the Stamp Act catalyzed the American colonies' desire for independence and united them in opposition to Britain. Franklin opposed the Stamp Act before Britain's House of Commons. His articulate answers before Parliament were published widely and earned him much admiration in America and abroad. Franklin also opposed such controversial acts of Parliament as the Townshend Acts (1767) and the Tea Act (1773). Although he originally worked for reconciliation with Britain, Franklin left for America in March 1775 convinced of the need for American independence.

Immediately upon his return to Philadelphia, Franklin was chosen to be a member of the Second Continental Congress. He again sketched a plan of union for the colonies. He also was one of a committee of five, including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, appointed in 1776 to draft the Declaration of Independence, the document that formally announced the colonies' break from Britain. Franklin signed the document, thereby becoming a revolutionary at age seventy. Soon after, the Continental Congress sent Franklin and two others to negotiate a critical treaty with France. Before he left, the wealthy Franklin also loaned the struggling Congress several thousand pounds.

Franklin was greeted as a hero in France, where translations of his scientific and literary works had gained him much admiration. He was treated by all classes of society as a great oracle, and his image was reproduced widely in prints, medallions, jewelry, and snuffboxes. "His reputation in Europe," Adams commented, "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them."

During the first years of the Revolutionary War, Franklin worked in France to secure war supplies and build credibility with the French, who were reluctant at first to cast their lot with an untested new country. France and the United States finally signed an alliance in 1778, after which Franklin became the first U.S. minister to France. Fulfilling the myriad duties of that office with great diplomatic skill, he continued to gain crucial supplies and money for the U.S. cause. In 1781, after defeat at the Battle of Yorktown had persuaded the British to give up the war, Franklin participated in delicate peace talks with Britain. He had much to do with the favorable terms of peace set forth in the Treaty of Paris, which finally gave the United States complete independence from Britain.

Franklin returned to the United States in 1785. After serving three years as president of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, he was chosen as a member of the Constitutional Convention, which met in Philadelphia in 1787. Now eighty-one, he attended the convention regularly for over four months and served as unofficial host to the delegates. Although Franklin's calls for a single national legislative chamber and for an executive board (as opposed to a president) were not honored, his arguments helped the convention reach the important compromises that were necessary to secure agreement on the document. In particular, Franklin called for mutual compromise on the sticky issue of the number of representatives to be allotted to each state in the national legislature. Of this disagreement, which pitted small states against large states, Franklin commented,

If a property representation takes place, the small states contend that their liberties will be in danger. If an equality of votes is to be put in its place, the large states say their money will be in danger. When a broad table is to be made, and the edges of the planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both, and makes a good joint.

Later, Franklin urged other members of the convention to approve the final version of the Constitution. "I consent, Sir, to this Constitution," he declared to the convention, "because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The Opinions I have had of its Errors, I sacrifice to the Public Good." In the following battle for ratification of the Constitution, Franklin used his considerable reputation to promote its success.

For the last few years of his life, Franklin retired to Philadelphia. In his last public act, he signed a memorial to Congress for the abolition of slavery. He died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790, at the age of eighty-four. Among his many lasting literary works is his autobiography.

Quotes:

"They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles."

"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."

"Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young."

"An old young man, will be a young old man."

"If you wouldn't live long, live well; for folly and wickedness shorten life."

"At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment."

See more famous quotes by Benjamin Franklin