Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), American printer,
author, diplomat, philosopher, and scientist, whose many contributions
to the cause of the American Revolution (1775-1783), 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, a tallow chandler by trade, had 17 children; Benjamin was the
15th child and the 10th son. His mother, Abiah Folger, was his father's
second wife. The Franklin family was in modest circumstances, like most
New Englanders of the time. After his attendance at grammar school from
age eight to ten, Benjamin was taken into his father's business. Finding
the work uncongenial, however, he entered the employ of a cutler. At age
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 the British preacher John Bunyan, Parallel
Lives, the work of the Greek essayist and biographer Plutarch, Essay on
Projects by the English journalist and novelist Daniel Defoe, and the Essays
to Do Good by Cotton Mather, the American Congregational clergyman. When
he acquired a copy of the third volume of the Spectator by the British
statesmen and essayists Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, he set himself
the goal of mastering its prose style.
In 1721 his brother James Franklin established the New England
Courant, and Benjamin, at the age of 15, was busily occupied in delivering
the newspaper by day and in composing articles for it at night. These articles,
published anonymously, won wide notice and acclaim for their pithy observations
on the current scene. Because of its liberal bias, the New England Courant
frequently incurred the displeasure of the colonial authorities. 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.
Philadelphia and London
As a result of 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, 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 age 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, a Philadelphia woman whom he had known before
his trip to England.
Projects and Experiments
Franklin engaged in many public projects. In 1731 he founded what was
probably the first public library in America, chartered in 1742 as the
Philadelphia Library. He first published Poor Richard's Almanack in 1732,
under the pen name Richard Saunders. This 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 stove, which furnished greater heat with a reduced
consumption of fuel.
In 1747 Franklin began his electrical experiments with a simple
apparatus that he received from Peter Collinson in England. He advanced
a tenable theory of the Leyden jar, supported the hypothesis that lightning
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 lightning 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 St. 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 contributions 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. The curriculum he suggested
was a considerable departure from the program of classical studies then
in vogue. English and modern foreign languages were to be emphasized as
well as mathematics and science.
Public Office
In 1748 Franklin sold his printing business and, in 1750, was elected
to the Pennsylvania 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 (1754-1763). 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.
It was his staunch belief that the adoption of this plan would have averted
the American Revolution.
When the French and Indian War broke out, Franklin procured horses,
wagons, and supplies for the British commander General Edward Braddock
by pledging his own credit to the Pennsylvania farmers, who thereupon furnished
the necessary equipment. The proprietors of Pennsylvania Colony, descendants
of the Quaker leader William Penn, in conformity with their religious opposition
to war, refused to allow their landholdings to be taxed for the prosecution
of the war. Thus, in 1757, Franklin was sent to England by the Pennsylvania
Assembly to petition the king for the right to levy taxes on proprietary
lands. After completing his mission, he remained in England for five years
as the chief representative of the American colonies. During this period
he made friends with many prominent Englishmen, including the chemist and
clergyman Joseph Priestley, the philosopher and historian David Hume, and
the philosopher and economist Adam Smith.
Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1762, where he remained until
1764, when he was once again dispatched to England as the agent of Pennsylvania.
In 1766 he was interrogated before the House of Commons regarding the effects
of the Stamp Act upon the colonies; his testimony was largely influential
in securing the repeal of the act. Soon, however, new plans for taxing
the colonies were introduced in Parliament, and Franklin was increasingly
divided between his devotion to his native land and his loyalty as a subject
of George III of Great Britain. Finally, in 1775, his powers of conciliation
exhausted, Franklin sorrowfully acknowledged the inevitability of war.
Sailing for America after an absence of 11 years, he reached Philadelphia
on May 5, 1775, to find that the opening engagements of the Revolution-the
battles of Lexington and Concord-had already been fought. He was chosen
a member of the Second Continental Congress, serving on ten of its committees,
and was made postmaster general, an office he held for one year.
Diplomat of the Revolution
In 1775 Franklin traveled to Canada, suffering great hardship
along the way, in a vain effort to enlist the cooperation and support of
Canada in the Revolution. Upon his return, he became one of the committee
of five chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence. He was also one
of the signers of that historic document, addressing the assembly with
the characteristic statement: "We must all hang together, or assuredly
we shall all hang separately." In September of the same year, he was chosen,
with two other Americans, Arthur Lee and Silas Deane, to seek economic
assistance in France. His scientific reputation, his integrity of character,
and his wit and gracious manner made him extremely popular in French political,
literary, and social circles, and his wisdom and ingenuity secured for
the U.S. aid and concessions that perhaps no other man could have obtained.
Against the vigorous opposition of the French minister of finance, Jacques
Necker, and despite the jealous antagonism of his coldly formal American
colleagues, he managed to obtain liberal grants and loans from Louis XVI
of France. Franklin encouraged and materially assisted American privateers
operating against the British navy, especially John Paul Jones. On February
6, 1778, Franklin negotiated the treaty of commerce and defensive alliance
with France that represented, in effect, the turning point of the American
Revolution. Seven months later, he was appointed by Congress as the first
minister plenipotentiary from the U.S. to France.
In 1781 Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay were appointed to conclude
a treaty of peace with Great Britain. The final treaty was signed at Versailles
on September 3, 1783 (see Paris, Treaty of). During the remainder of his
stay in France, Franklin was accorded honorary distinctions commensurate
with his notable and diversified accomplishments. His scientific standing
won him an appointment from the French king as one of the commissioners
investigating the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer and the phenomenon
of animal magnetism. As a dignitary of one of the most distinguished Freemason
lodges in France, Franklin had the opportunity of meeting and speaking
with a number of philosophers and leading figures of the French Revolution
(1789-1799), upon whose political thinking he exerted a profound influence.
Although he favored a liberalization of the French government, he opposed
change through violent revolution.
A Framer of the Constitution
In March 1785, Franklin, at his own request, left his duties in France
and returned to Philadelphia, where he was immediately chosen president
of the Pennsylvania executive council (1785-87). In 1787 he was elected
a delegate to the convention that drew up the U.S. 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.
Franklin's most notable service to his country was the result of his
great skill in diplomacy. To his common sense, wisdom, wit, and industry,
he joined great firmness of purpose, matchless tact, and broad tolerance.
Both as a brilliant conversationalist and a sympathetic listener, Franklin
had a wide and appreciative following in the intellectual salons of the
day. For the most part, his literary reputation rests on his unfinished
Autobiography, which is considered by many the epitome of his life and
character.
"Franklin, Benjamin," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c)
1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Home
