Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, , in colonial Boston. His father, Josiah Franklin (), a native of England, was a candle and soap maker who married twice and had 17 children. Franklin’s mother was Abiah Folger () of Nantucket, Massachusetts, Josiah’s second wife. Franklin was the eighth of Abiah and Josiah’s 10 offspring.
Did you know? Benjamin Franklin is the only Founding Father to have signed all four of the key documents establishing the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (), the Treaty of Alliance with France (), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain () and the U.S. Constitution ().
Franklin’s formal education was limited and ended when he was 10; however, he was an avid reader and taught himself to become a skilled writer. In , at age 12, he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a Boston printer. By age 16, Franklin was contributing essays (under the pseudonym Silence Dogood) to a newspaper published by his brother. At age 17, Franklin ran away from his apprenticeship to Philadelphia, where he found work as a printer. In late , he traveled to London, England, and again found employment in the printing business.
Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia in , and two years later opened a printing shop. The business became highly successful producing a range of materials, including government pamphlets, books and currency. In , Franklin became the owner and publisher of a colonial newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which proved popular—and to which he contributed much of the content, often using pseudonyms. Franklin achieved fame and further financial success with “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” which he published every year from to The almanac became known for its witty sayings, which often had to do with the importance of diligence and frugality, such as “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
In , Franklin began living with Deborah Read (c. ), the daughter of his former Philadelphia landlady, as his common-law wife. Read’s first husband had abandoned her; however, due to bigamy laws, she and Franklin could not have an official wedding ceremony. Franklin and Read had a son, Francis Folger Franklin (), who died of smallpox at age 4, and a daughter, Sarah Franklin Bache (). Franklin had another son, William Franklin (c. ), who was born out of wedlock. William Franklin served as the last colonial governor of New Jersey, from to , and remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution. He died in exile in England.
Advice from the Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin
As Franklin’s printing business prospered, he became increasingly involved in civic affairs. Starting in the s, he helped establish a number of community organizations in Philadelphia, including a lending library (it was founded in , a time when books weren’t widely available in the colonies, and remained the largest U.S. public library until the s), the city’s first fire company, a police patrol and the American Philosophical Society, a group devoted to the sciences and other scholarly pursuits.
Franklin also organized the Pennsylvania militia, raised funds to build a city hospital and spearheaded a program to pave and light city streets. Additionally, Franklin was instrumental in the creation of the Academy of Philadelphia, a college which opened in and became known as the University of Pennsylvania in
Franklin also was a key figure in the colonial postal system. In , the British appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia, and he went on to become, in , joint postmaster general for all the American colonies. In this role he instituted various measures to improve mail service; however, the British dismissed him from the job in because he was deemed too sympathetic to colonial interests. In July , the Continental Congress appointed Franklin the first postmaster general of the United States, giving him authority over all post offices from Massachusetts to Georgia. He held this position until November , when he was succeeded by his son-in-law. (The first U.S. postage stamps, issued on July 1, , featured images of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.)
In , Franklin, then 42 years old, had expanded his printing business throughout the colonies and become successful enough to stop working. Retirement allowed him to concentrate on public service and also pursue more fully his longtime interest in science. In the s, he conducted experiments that contributed to the understanding of electricity, and invented the lightning rod, which protected buildings from fires caused by lightning. In , he conducted his famous kite experiment and demonstrated that lightning is electricity. Franklin also coined a number of electricity-related terms, including battery, charge and conductor.
In addition to electricity, Franklin studied a number of other topics, including ocean currents, meteorology, causes of the common cold and refrigeration. He developed the Franklin stove, which provided more heat while using less fuel than other stoves, and bifocal eyeglasses, which allow for distance and reading use. In the early s, Franklin invented a musical instrument called the glass armonica. Composers such as Ludwig Beethoven () and Wolfgang Mozart () wrote music for Franklin’s armonica; however, by the early part of the 19th century, the once-popular instrument had largely fallen out of use.
The Eventful Life of Benjamin Franklin
In , at a meeting of colonial representatives in Albany, New York, Franklin proposed a plan for uniting the colonies under a national congress. Although his Albany Plan was rejected, it helped lay the groundwork for the Articles of Confederation, which became the first constitution of the United States when ratified in
In , Franklin traveled to London as a representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, to which he was elected in Over several years, he worked to settle a tax dispute and other issues involving descendants of William Penn (), the owners of the colony of Pennsylvania. After a brief period back in the U.S., Franklin lived primarily in London until While he was abroad, the British government began, in the mids, to impose a series of regulatory measures to assert greater control over its American colonies. In , Franklin testified in the British Parliament against the Stamp Act of , which required that all legal documents, newspapers, books, playing cards and other printed materials in the American colonies carry a tax stamp. Although the Stamp Act was repealed in , additional regulatory measures followed, leading to ever-increasing anti-British sentiment and eventual armed uprising in the American colonies.
Writing of Declaration of Independence
Franklin returned to Philadelphia in May , shortly after the Revolutionary War () had begun, and was selected to serve as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, America’s governing body at the time. In , he was part of the five-member committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence, in which the 13 American colonies declared their freedom from British rule. That same year, Congress sent Franklin to France to enlist that nation’s help with the Revolutionary War. In February , the French signed a military alliance with America and went on to provide soldiers, supplies and money that proved critical to America’s victory in the war.
As minister to France starting in , Franklin helped negotiate and draft the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.
In , Franklin left France and returned once again to Philadelphia. In , he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. (The year-old Franklin was the convention’s oldest delegate.) At the end of the convention, in September , he urged his fellow delegates to support the heavily debated new document. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the required nine states in June , and George Washington () was inaugurated as America’s first president in April
Franklin died a year later, at age 84, on April 17, , in Philadelphia. Following a funeral that was attended by an estimated 20, people, he was buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church cemetery. In his will, he left money to Boston and Philadelphia, which was later used to establish a trade school and a science museum and fund scholarships and other community projects.
More than years after his death, Franklin remains one of the most celebrated figures in U.S. history. His image appears on the $ bill, and towns, schools and businesses across America are named for him.
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