Benjamin Franklin is one of the most famous figures in American history. Known as a Founding Father of the United States, his influence is seen everywhere, from his face on the hundred-dollar bill to landmarks like the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia. But who was Benjamin Franklin, and what made him such an important figure?
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a candle and soap maker who had 16 children. With such a large family, money was tight, and Ben had to leave school after just two years to help in his father’s candle shop.
To help the family financially, Ben became an indentured servant to his older brother James, who owned a print shop. This meant Ben worked for his brother without pay until he paid off his debt. During this time, Ben learned a lot about printing and even tried to sell his own writings, though he struggled to make money from it.
At 19, Ben wanted to marry Deborah Read, but her father refused because Ben was still an indentured servant. Deborah later married someone else, but the marriage didn’t work out. Eventually, Ben and Deborah reunited and lived together as a couple, raising Ben’s son William from a previous relationship.
After finishing his servitude, Ben used his printing skills to start his own business. He moved to Philadelphia and began printing The Pennsylvania Gazette in 1728. He joined a group called The Junto Club, which helped start a library, one of the first in America.
Ben also published Poor Richard’s Almanack, a popular book filled with advice and proverbs. While he wasn’t the first to publish an almanac, his became very famous. He even spread rumors about a rival family, the Leeds, which led to the legend of the Jersey Devil.
In 1737, Ben became the Postmaster General of Philadelphia, giving him control over mail delivery in the city. This position helped him gain influence and power.
Many people credit Ben Franklin with discovering electricity, but the story of him flying a kite in a storm is likely exaggerated. Scientists were already studying electricity before him, but Ben’s experiments made him famous. He also claimed to invent things like the Franklin Stove and bifocal glasses, though these ideas were likely borrowed from others.
Despite not making money from his inventions, Ben was a successful businessman. By his 40s, he was able to focus on politics and public speaking. He even moved to England to represent the American colonies and mingled with influential people.
In his later years, Ben Franklin continued to enjoy life, even as he suffered from health issues like gout. He passed away at the age of 84 from a lung disease called pleurisy.
Today, Benjamin Franklin is remembered as a key figure in American history. His legacy lives on through his writings, inventions, and the many places named after him. Whether you admire him or question his methods, there’s no denying the impact he had on the world.
Create a timeline of Benjamin Franklin’s life. Use the information from the article to mark important events such as his birth, his time as an indentured servant, his move to Philadelphia, and his inventions. Illustrate each event with a drawing or a symbol to make your timeline visually engaging.
Participate in a role-playing debate where you and your classmates take on the roles of historical figures from Franklin’s time. Discuss the impact of Franklin’s inventions and political actions on American society. Prepare your arguments based on the article and additional research.
Choose one of Benjamin Franklin’s inventions or discoveries mentioned in the article. Research how it works and its impact on society. Create a simple model or diagram to explain the invention to your classmates, highlighting its significance during Franklin’s time and today.
Write a short story or diary entry from the perspective of Benjamin Franklin during a significant event in his life, such as his kite experiment or his time as Postmaster General. Use the article as a guide to ensure historical accuracy while adding your creative touch.
Conduct a research project on another Founding Father of the United States. Compare and contrast their contributions to those of Benjamin Franklin. Present your findings in a report or presentation, highlighting how each figure shaped American history.
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Every American has been taught the stories of his accomplishments since elementary school, and it’s hard to go anywhere in the US without eventually being reminded of Ben Franklin. In Philadelphia, there is the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Franklin Institute, and statues of his likeness all over the city. His face is also on the one hundred dollar bill. There was so much respect for him in the US that saying anything negative is practically treasonous. But on today’s Biographics, we aren’t going to hold back on all the details about how Ben Franklin was quite a character.
**Early Life**
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Josiah Franklin, came to the colonies in 1682 from Northamptonshire and made candles and soap for a living. Josiah Franklin fathered 16 children. He had 7 with his first wife, Anne Child, in England, and 9 with his second wife, Abiah Folger, once he came to America. As you can imagine, raising 17 children on a candle maker’s salary wasn’t easy. Money was incredibly tight in their household. Ben Franklin went to grammar school for just two years before he had to leave to work in his father’s candle business.
Franklin’s parents were so poor that they arranged for him to enter indentured servitude to his oldest brother, James. In case you weren’t aware of how indentured servitude works, Ben Franklin worked for his brother without pay until his labor repaid the debt. James started his own printmaking business and published a newspaper called the New England Courant. Ben’s free room and board also counted against him, as he was not allowed to earn an income for most of his younger years.
Franklin tried to earn money by starting a side hustle. He used the printers to self-publish his writing and would stand in the streets reciting his ballads and poems, trying to sell copies to passersby. However, he was a novice without a proper education, so this was never enough income to support him. Franklin tried to get married at age 19 to a woman named Deborah Read. At the time, when a man got married, they received a dowry from the woman’s father, which would have helped him pay off his debt. Initially, he thought they could live together with Read’s parents, but once her father found out that Franklin was an indentured servant, he retracted his permission for them to marry.
After rejecting Ben Franklin, Deborah Read’s parents arranged a marriage for her to a man named John Rogers. However, it turned out that Rogers lied about having a job and was actually unemployed. He spent all of the money and got them both into a massive amount of debt. One of John Rogers’ friends from England came to visit and was shocked to see that he had a wife because he was already legally married back in the UK. After being exposed, John Rogers returned to England, leaving Deborah in a difficult situation as she could not get a divorce without his signature.
Meanwhile, Ben Franklin was enjoying his life as a bachelor. In his autobiography, he wrote about his youthful passions and how they led him into various romantic entanglements. By the time Ben Franklin and Deborah Read reunited, he had fathered a child, William, with another woman. No one knows the identity of this woman or why she abandoned their child. Deborah Read was just happy to have Franklin back and agreed to help raise William. Since Read never got a divorce, they could not legally marry but lived as common-law husband and wife.
**Moving on Up**
Once Benjamin Franklin completed his term of servitude, it made sense for him to take everything he learned from his brother James and open his own printing business. To accomplish that, he had to travel to England to purchase expensive printing equipment and sail back to Boston. Franklin was still broke but managed to get an investor to help with the startup costs. However, once he was in London, his investor backed out, leaving him stranded. Franklin managed to return to the United States but decided to leave Boston in favor of Philadelphia. He began printing The Pennsylvania Gazette in 1728.
He quickly made friends and joined a group called The Junto Club. Together, they established a library similar to what was already available to the public back in England. Although the Junto Club was already working on this project, Franklin often claimed that he was the one who created the first library in the United States. This claim has been circulated so many times that it has even found its way into history books. Another achievement that Ben Franklin is mistakenly credited for is publishing the first almanac in the United States. His Poor Richard’s Almanack premiered in 1733 and became the second most printed book besides the Bible. However, he actually borrowed this idea from the Leeds Family of New Jersey, who had been publishing a Farmer’s Almanack since 1689.
Franklin began a rumor that the family’s patriarch, Titan Leeds, was a satanist and published a prediction that he would die in 1733. He also published more defamatory stories about the Leeds family in the Philadelphia Gazette. Just two years later, in 1735, a story spread that “Mother Leeds” gave birth to a hideous creature known as The Jersey Devil, permanently ruining their reputation.
You might wonder why the Leeds family didn’t sue Franklin. Around the same time, US courts decided that newspapers and print publications should have “freedom of speech,” even if the words they printed could not be proven true. This idea eventually developed into the First Amendment in the US Constitution. Journalists were trusted to uphold a high degree of ethics, and most people believed they would do their due diligence before printing a story.
Just a few years later, in 1737, Ben Franklin became the Postmaster General of Philadelphia. The postal system in the colonies was already run by The British Crown Post. It was common for the major newspaper publisher of each city to be in charge of the mail since they were already delivering papers to subscribers. According to historic records from the US Postal Service, Franklin could choose not to deliver any competing newspapers, essentially giving him a monopoly over information being sent throughout Philadelphia.
**His Not-So-Original Inventions**
You’ve probably heard that Ben Franklin “discovered” electricity. As the story goes, he went outside with a key tied to a kite string during a lightning storm. Many modern historians now believe that this story was exaggerated. Other scientists were already experimenting with electricity years before he did. Peter Collinson was the man who showed Ben Franklin a functioning electricity tube, which sparked his interest in science. However, Franklin only had two years of elementary school education and was largely self-taught through reading books. Unlike Peter Collinson, Franklin had no formal knowledge of physics and published information that electricity was a “fluid.”
Despite his lack of expertise, Ben Franklin made a public spectacle about “his” discovery of electricity. He decided to demonstrate how he could stop a turkey’s heart with electric shock. In the midst of trying to demonstrate this, he accidentally electrocuted himself in front of a crowd. Instead of realizing that Franklin was inexperienced, people were still very impressed, and he earned a reputation as a scientist. He went on to supposedly invent several other things, like the Franklin Stove, which was actually a copy of a design from the Louvre in Paris.
The College of Optometrists has serious doubts that he actually invented bifocal eyeglasses. The deeper you research, the more you realize that Ben Franklin may not have invented anything, and that all of his ideas most likely came from books and people he met. He never filed a single patent or copyright. In his autobiography, he claimed that he chose not to do this because he wanted to share his ideas with the world without profiting from them. In reality, if he had filed a patent for something that wasn’t actually his, it would have invited legal trouble.
Even though he never made any money from these inventions, Benjamin Franklin was still a successful businessman. By the time he was in his 40s, his employees were running the newspaper without him, allowing him to focus on his position as Postmaster General. He traveled around the country for public speaking engagements with members of the British Parliament. When he was 51 years old, Benjamin Franklin moved to England to negotiate on behalf of the colonists of Pennsylvania. He spent several years living in London with his son William and began to make friends with members of the British aristocracy.
This led him to become part of a group called The Hellfire Club, a secret society of upper-class men who liked to discuss philosophy, politics, and the occult. Members met at empty monasteries and churches to hold meetings. There are numerous allegations that Ben Franklin was indeed part of The Hellfire Club under the code name “Brother Benjamin of Cookham.” Despite the evidence, many American historians have tried to deny his involvement.
**Death and Legacy**
For the rest of Benjamin Franklin’s life, he continued to indulge in whatever he wanted. He eventually contracted a painful condition known as gout, which is often linked to excessive alcohol consumption and poor diet. During his recovery, he wrote a fictional conversation with his disease, revealing that in his later years, the only exercise he got was the walk from his carriage to a restaurant and back again.
Benjamin Franklin died at the age of 84. Contrary to popular belief, he did not have syphilis, which is surprising given his numerous romantic encounters. He had pleurisy when he died, a disease of the lung. For years after his death, the only evidence that people cared about Ben Franklin’s legacy came from his self-published autobiography. They believed everything he said and took his word as gospel.
The hero worship of Benjamin Franklin is now ingrained in American history. People want to believe that this genius polymath was one of the masterminds behind the founding of the nation, and Americans take pride in having him represent their country. Whether you love him or hate him, there is no denying that he made an impact. Today, there are statues, museums, libraries, schools, and entire towns named after Benjamin Franklin in the United States. If he were alive to see all of this today, he would probably smile, because just like everything else in his life, he got exactly what he wanted.
Benjamin – A term often used to refer to Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. – Benjamin Franklin was a key figure in American history, known for his contributions to the founding of the nation.
Franklin – Referring to Benjamin Franklin, an influential American statesman, inventor, and writer. – Franklin’s experiments with electricity laid the groundwork for many modern technologies.
History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs. – Studying history helps us understand how past events have shaped the present world.
Printing – The process of reproducing text and images, typically with ink on paper. – The invention of the printing press revolutionized the way information was shared in history.
Inventions – New devices or processes created through study and experimentation. – Benjamin Franklin’s inventions, like the lightning rod, had a significant impact on society.
Electricity – A form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles. – Franklin’s famous kite experiment demonstrated the connection between lightning and electricity.
Almanack – A yearly publication containing information such as calendars, weather forecasts, and other data. – Poor Richard’s Almanack, published by Franklin, was popular for its practical advice and witty sayings.
Philadelphia – A city in Pennsylvania, significant in American history as a center of political and social activity. – Philadelphia was the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Legacy – Something handed down by a predecessor, often referring to cultural or historical contributions. – Benjamin Franklin’s legacy includes his contributions to science, politics, and education.
Servant – A person who performs duties for others, especially in a household. – In colonial times, many households in Philadelphia employed servants to help with daily chores.
