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 a huge electric spark.
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 Paris that made peace with Great Britain (now also called the United Kingdom), and the Constitution of the United States. Franklin’s services as a diplomat in France helped greatly in winning the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783). Many historians consider him the ablest and most successful diplomat that America has ever sent abroad.
Franklin was a 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 read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1789) and quote sayings from Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac (1733-1758). Franklin also 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, Comte de Mirabeau, referred to Franklin as “the sage whom two worlds claimed as their own.”
Early life
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 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 and religious. His father made soap and candles in his shop “at the sign of the Blue Ball” on Milk Street, and later in a bigger house on Union 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 (1678, 1684), Plutarch’s Lives (about A.D. 100), Cotton Mather’s Bonifacius (1710), and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). 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. Benjamin soon became a skilled printer. He wrote several newspaper articles, signed them “Silence Dogood,” and slipped them under the printshop door. James admired the articles and printed several of them. But the brothers quarreled frequently, and Benjamin longed to become his own master. He also wished to escape from his brother’s beatings, which Benjamin later called the cause of his “Aversion to arbitrary Power that has stuck to me thro’ my whole Life.”
At 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia. The story of his arrival there, as told in his autobiography, 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. 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.” 
Franklin married Deborah Read (1708–1774), the daughter of his first Philadelphia landlady, in 1730. Deborah was not nearly so well educated as her husband, but her work in the printing shop helped diversify the business. Franklin quickly became a leader in the printing trade. He sent a series of former apprentices to open shops in other locations, from Newport in Rhode Island to the British colony of Antigua in the Caribbean Sea.
The Franklins raised three children, William Franklin (1731?-1813), Francis Folger Franklin (1732-1736), and Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808). William Franklin became governor of New Jersey in 1762 and a leading Tory, or Loyalist, when he sided with the British in 1776. Sarah Franklin Bache helped collect funds for American troops during the Revolutionary War. She also raised a large family, including the printer and political activist Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769-1798).
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 published it from 1729 until 1766. Franklin was often on the lookout 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 achieved even greater financial 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.” See Poor Richard’s Almanac.
Franklin retired from running the print shop in 1748, at the age of 42, so that he could pursue science and politics full time.
Civic leader.
Franklin was always 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 became Philadelphia’s postmaster in 1737. He impressed the British government with his efficiency in this position, and in 1753 he became a 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 Library Company of Philadelphia 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 people with mental illness during Franklin’s time. He raised money to help build a city hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital, for these people.
Scholars in the American Colonies had no special clubs or professional organizations, 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 such projects, 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 became famous for his description of an electrical experiment he said he conducted at Philadelphia. In 1752, he described how he flew a homemade kite during a thunderstorm to prove that lightning is a giant electric spark. According to Franklin, 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. Franklin also 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 (History).
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. 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 continue to appreciate his invention of bifocal eyeglasses. 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 people’s comfort and convenience.
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 (see French and Indian wars). Franklin felt that the colonies had to unite for self-defense against the French and Indigenous (native) groups. 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 colonies together in “one general government,” in part to negotiate better with Indigenous Americans who were joined through the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The Plan of Union contained some of the ideas that were later included in the Articles of Confederation and 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.” See Albany Congress.
The war led Franklin to turn his attention to military matters. During two earlier conflicts, he had urged Philadelphians, including the pacifist Quakers who dominated Pennsylvania politics, to defend the city by supporting a militia company he founded. 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 their Indigenous allies 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 Britain). The proprietors controlled the governor of the colony and would not allow the colony 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 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 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 Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. At the height of the argument, Franklin published an influential pamphlet that shrewdly compared the boundless future of Canada with the relative unimportance of Guadeloupe. In this and other writings, Franklin supported the North American colonies and described them as crucial to the British Empire.
Franklin also took part in the fight over the Stamp Act (see 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 his audience, and his reputation grew throughout Europe. The Stamp Act was repealed a short time later, and Franklin received some of the credit.
Political relations between Britain and the colonies grew steadily worse. Franklin wanted America to remain in the British Empire, but he also wanted the rights of the colonists recognized and protected. Like other patriot leaders, he grew frustrated with the tendency of many Britons to see colonists as inferiors. Franklin pledged his entire fortune to pay for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party if the British government would agree to repeal what the colonists felt was an unjust tax on tea (see Boston Tea Party). The British ignored his proposal. Franklin realized that his usefulness in Britain had ended, and he sailed for home on March 21, 1775. Franklin had worked hard 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 also 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, Maine, to Savannah, Georgia. 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, and artists made portraits and busts of him.
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 Britain. So Franklin tactfully 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, 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 territory extending west to the Mississippi River and north to Canada. 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. In 1787, Pennsylvania sent Franklin to the Constitutional Convention. The delegates met in Independence Hall and drafted the Constitution of the United States. The 81-year-old Franklin was the oldest delegate at the convention.
Franklin 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. It also allowed three-fifths of the enslaved population to be counted for the purpose of taxation and representation. Franklin had not wanted enslaved people to be counted. However, as in earlier debates during the revolutionary years, he believed that ensuring the survival of the nation was more important than fighting slavery. 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 Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Franklin’s last public act was to sign an appeal to Congress calling for the speedy abolition of slavery. Franklin had been a slaveholder and defended Americans against charges of hypocrisy on the issue of slavery. Only in private had he supported slavery’s critics. But abolitionists later claimed Franklin as an antislavery pioneer because of his final stance on the issue.
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, in trust funds to be loaned out at interest. He directed that part of the accumulated funds be used for public works after 100 years, and the rest after 200 years. Part of the money was used to establish Franklin Union (now the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology), a Boston trade school; and the Franklin Institute, an organization in Philadelphia that promotes science education. The Franklin Institute includes the well-known Franklin Institute Science Museum.
His place in history
Franklin became known to future generations for his lifelong concern for the happiness, well-being, and dignity of humanity. George Washington summarized American popular sentiment 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 Science Museum, dedicated to popularizing the sciences that Franklin loved so much. This building contains the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, with a famous statue of Franklin by James Earle Fraser (see Franklin Institute Science Museum). Independence National Historical Park includes the site of Franklin’s home and many museum exhibits about Franklin and his world.
