Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 010 · 2018. 10. 30. · Bunda Teresa. Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 001 Page 2 Setiap orang harus memberi karya, agar generasi setelahnya tahu

Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 001 Page 1

Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 010

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” ~ Benjamin Franklin 010 ~ Ok

"Tulislah sesuatu yang layak dibaca atau lakukan sesuatu yang berharga untuk ditulis." ~ Benjamin Franklin 010 ~ Ok

Anda mampu menulis sesuatu yang menarik untuk dibaca? Apa tujuannya? Untuk memberi inspirasi bagi pembaca. Apakah Anda mampu melakukan sesuatu yang berharga untuk ditulis? Untuk apa? Untuk memberi motivasi sekaligus menginspirasi orang lain. Yang manapun pilihannya, keduanya baik. Sejauh kita memang layak untuk salah satunya.

Benjamin Franklin, dikenal sebagai Bapak Pendiri Amerika Serikat, berkebangsaan Amerika, hidup dalam rentang tahun 1706-1790, pernah memberikan quote, ‘Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.’ Secara bebas diterjemahkan, ‘Tulislah sesuatu yang layak dibaca atau lakukan sesuatu yang berharga untuk ditulis.’

Kita adalah teladan yang hidup, baik lewat tulisan, terlebih lewat karya perbuatan. Setiap orang memiliki tanggung jawab untuk berkontribusi sepanjang hidupnya. Setiap orang memiliki talenta yang darinya, ia akan dikenang oleh generasi setelahnnya. Ada seorang yang terus dikenang lewat tulisannya. Contohnya, Ibu RA Kartini. Ia dikenang karena tulisannya lewat buku “Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang”. Namun, ada orang yang dikenang karena perbuatannya. Ia tidak pernah menulis sebuah buku pun. Orang lain yang menulis tentang karyanya. Contohnya, Bunda Teresa.


Setiap orang harus memberi karya, agar generasi setelahnya tahu bahwa pernah ada seorang yang hidup dengan tulisan atau perbuatan tertentu. Dengan demikian, generasi mendatang memperoleh inspirasi untuk melakukan hal yang sama atau bahkan melebihinya.

Bila kita memiliki role model sebagai acuan, kita dapat memberi sesuatu bagi kehidupan banyak orang. Menulislah, bila engkau memiliki talenta dalam menulis. Berbuatlah sesuatu, sehingga lewat perbuatanmu, layak untuk dituliskan sebagai warisan bagi generasi setelahmu.

Mulailah dari hal kecil. Karena, karya yang besar hanya ada lewat perbuatan atau tindakan kecil yang terakumulasi dalam rentang waktu yang Panjang.

Indonesia, 31 Oktober 2018

Riset Corporation

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Benjamin Franklin Biography

Diplomat, Inventor, Writer, Scientist (1706–1790)

Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the Founding Fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Who Was Benjamin Franklin?

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 to April 17, 1790) was a Founding Father and a polymath, inventor, scientist, printer, politician, freemason and diplomat. Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and he negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War. His scientific pursuits included investigations into electricity, mathematics and mapmaking. A writer known for his wit and wisdom, Franklin also published Poor Richard’s Almanack, invented bifocal glasses and organized the first successful American lending library.

Benjamin Franklin’s Inventions and Discoveries

Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor and scientist who was responsible for the following inventions:

- Franklin stove: Franklin’s first invention, created around 1740, provided more heat with less fuel.

- Bifocals. Anyone tired of switching between two pairs of glasses understands why Franklin developed bifocals that could be used for both distance and reading.

- Armonica. Franklin’s inventions took on a musical bent when, in 1761, he commenced development on the armonica, a musical instrument composed of spinning glass bowls on a shaft. Both Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed music for the strange instrument.

- Rocking chair

- Flexible catheter

- American penny

Franklin also discovered the Gulf Stream after his return trip across the Atlantic Ocean from London in 1775. He began to speculate about why the westbound trip always took longer, and

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his measurements of ocean temperatures led to his discovery of the existence of the Gulf Stream. This knowledge served to cut two weeks off the previous sailing time from Europe to North America.

Franklin even devised a new “scheme” for the alphabet that proposed to eliminate the letters C, J, Q, W, X and Y as redundant.

Franklin’s self-education earned him honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, England’s Oxford University and Scotland’s University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1749, Franklin wrote a pamphlet concerning the education of youth in Pennsylvania that resulted in the establishment of the Academy of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Franklin and Electricity

In 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted the famous kite-and-key experiment to demonstrate that lightning was electricity and soon after invented the lightning rod. His investigations into electrical phenomena were compiled into “Experiments and Observations on Electricity,” published in England in 1751. He coined new electricity-related terms that are still part of the lexicon, such as battery, charge, conductor and electrify.

Was Benjamin Franklin President of the U.S.?

Benjamin Franklin was never elected President of the United States. However he played an important role as one of seven Founding Fathers, helping draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He also served several roles in the government: He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly and appointed as the first postmaster general for the colonies as well as diplomat to France. He was a true polymath and entrepreneur, which is no doubt why he is often called the “First American.”

Franklin’s Wife and Kids

In 1723, Benjamin Franklin moved from Boston to Philadelphia and lodged at the home of John Read, where he met and courted his landlord’s daughter Deborah. After moving to London in 1724, Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 to find that Deborah had married in the interim, only to be abandoned by her husband just months after the wedding.

The future Founding Father eventually rekindled his romance with Deborah Read and he took her as his common-law wife in 1730. Around that time, Franklin fathered a son, William, out of wedlock who was taken in by the couple. The pair’s first son, Francis, was born in 1732, but he died four years later of smallpox. The couple’s only daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743.

The two times Benjamin Franklin moved to London, in 1757 and again in 1764, it was without Deborah, who refused to leave Philadelphia. His second stay was the last time the couple saw each other. Franklin would not return home before Deborah passed away in 1774 from a stroke at the age of 66.

In 1762, Franklin’s son William took office as New Jersey’s royal governor, a position his father arranged through his political connections in the British government. Franklin’s later support for the patriot cause put him at odds with his loyalist son. When the New Jersey militia stripped William Franklin of his post as royal governor and imprisoned him, in 1776, his father chose not to intercede on his behalf.


When and Where Was Benjamin Franklin Born?

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston in what was then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Childhood

Benjamin Franklin’s father, English-born soap and candle maker Josiah Franklin, had seven children with first wife, Anne Child, and 10 more with second wife, Abiah Folger. Ben was his 15th child and youngest son.

Ben learned to read at an early age, and despite his success at the Boston Latin School, he stopped his formal schooling at 10 to work full-time in his cash-strapped father’s candle and soap shop. Dipping wax and cutting wicks didn’t fire the young boy’s imagination, however. Perhaps to dissuade him from going to sea as one of his brothers had done, Josiah apprenticed 12-year-old Ben at the print shop run by his brother James.

Although James mistreated and frequently beat his younger brother, Ben learned a great deal about newspaper publishing and adopted a similar brand of subversive politics under the printer’s tutelage. When James refused to publish any of his brother’s writing, 16-year-old Ben adopted the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogood, and “her” 14 imaginative and witty letters delighted readers of his brother’s newspaper, The New England Courant. James grew angry, however, when he learned that his apprentice had penned the letters.

Tired of his brother’s “harsh and tyrannical” behavior, Ben fled Boston in 1723 although he had three years remaining on a legally binding contract with his master. He escaped to New York before settling in Philadelphia and began working with another printer. Philadelphia became his home base for the rest of his life.

Living in London

Encouraged by Pennsylvania Governor William Keith to set up his own print shop, Franklin left for London in 1724 to purchase supplies from stationers, booksellers and printers. When the teenager arrived in England, however, he felt duped when Keith’s letters of introduction never arrived as promised.

Although forced to find work at London’s print shops, Franklin took full advantage of the city’s pleasures—attending theater performances, mingling with the locals in coffee houses and continuing his lifelong passion for reading. A self-taught swimmer who crafted his own wooden flippers, Franklin performed long-distance swims on the Thames River. (In 1968, he was inducted as an honorary member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.)

In 1725 Franklin published his first pamphlet, "A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which argued that humans lack free will and, thus, are not morally responsible for their actions. (Franklin later repudiated this thought and burned all but one copy of the pamphlet still in his possession.)

Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726, and over the next few years he held varied jobs including bookkeeper, shopkeeper and currency cutter. In 1728 he returned to a familiar trade


printing paper currency in New Jersey before partnering with a friend to open his own print shop in Philadelphia that published government pamphlets and books.

In 1730 Franklin was named the official printer of Pennsylvania. By that time, he had formed the “Junto,” a social and self-improvement study group for young men that met every Friday to debate morality, philosophy and politics. When Junto members sought to expand their reading choices, Franklin helped to incorporate America’s first subscription library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, in 1731.

In 1729 Franklin published another pamphlet, "A Modest Enquiry into The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency," which advocated for an increase in the money supply to stimulate the economy.

With the cash Franklin earned from his money-related treatise, he was able to purchase The Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper from a former boss. Under his ownership, the struggling newspaper was transformed into the most widely-read paper in the colonies and became one of the first to turn a profit. He had less luck in 1732 when he launched the first German-language newspaper in the colonies, the short-lived Philadelphische Zeitung. Franklin’s prominence and success grew during the 1730s.

Franklin amassed real estate and businesses and organized the volunteer Union Fire Company to counteract dangerous fire hazards in Philadelphia. He joined the Freemasons in 1731 and was eventually elected grand master of the Masons of Pennsylvania.

Poor Richard's Almanack

At the end of 1732, Benjamin Franklin published the first edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack. In addition to weather forecasts, astronomical information and poetry, the almanac—which Franklin published for 25 consecutive years—included proverbs and Franklin’s witty maxims such as “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” and “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”

Scientist and Inventor

In the 1740s, Franklin expanded into science and entrepreneurship. His 1743 pamphlet "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge" underscored his interests and served as the founding document of the American Philosophical Society, the first scientific society in the colonies.

By 1748, the 42-year-old Franklin had become one of the richest men in Pennsylvania, and he became a soldier in the Pennsylvania militia. He turned his printing business over to a partner to give himself more time to conduct scientific experiments. He moved into a new house in 1748.

Benjamin Franklin and Slavery

In 1748, Franklin acquired the first of his slaves to work in the new home and in the print shop. Franklin’s views on slavery evolved over the following decades to the point that he considered the institution inherently evil, and thus, he freed his slaves in the 1760s. Later in life, he became more vociferous in his opposition to slavery. Franklin served as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and wrote many tracts urging the abolition of slavery. In 1790 he petitioned the U.S. Congress to end slavery and the slave trade.


Election to the Government

Franklin became a member of Philadelphia’s city council in 1748 and a justice of the peace the following year. In 1751, he was elected a Philadelphia alderman and a representative to the Pennsylvania Assembly, a position to which he was re-elected annually until 1764. Two years later, he accepted a royal appointment as deputy postmaster general of North America.

When the French and Indian War began in 1754, Franklin called on the colonies to band together for their common defense, which he dramatized in The Pennsylvania Gazette with a cartoon of a snake cut into sections with the caption “Join or Die.” He represented Pennsylvania at the Albany Congress, which adopted his proposal to create a unified government for the 13 colonies. Franklin’s “Plan of Union,” however, failed to be ratified by the colonies.

In 1757 Franklin was appointed by the Pennsylvania Assembly to serve as the colony’s agent in England. Franklin sailed to London to negotiate a long-standing dispute with the proprietors of the colony, the Penn family, taking William and his two slaves but leaving behind Deborah and Sarah. He spent most of the next two decades in London, where he was drawn to the high society and intellectual salons of the cosmopolitan city.

After Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1762, he toured the colonies to inspect its post offices.

The Stamp Act and Declaration of Independence

After Franklin lost his seat in the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1764, he returned to London as the colony’s agent. Franklin returned at a tense time in Great Britain’s relations with the American colonies. The British Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act in March 1765 imposed a highly unpopular tax on all printed materials for commercial and legal use in the American colonies. Since Franklin purchased stamps for his printing business and nominated a friend as the Pennsylvania stamp distributor, some colonists thought Franklin implicitly supported the new tax, and rioters in Philadelphia even threatened his house. Franklin’s passionate denunciation of the tax in testimony before Parliament, however, contributed to the Stamp Act’s repeal in 1766.

Two years later he penned a pamphlet, “Causes of the American Discontents before 1768,” and he soon became an agent for Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey as well. Franklin fanned the flames of revolution by sending the private letters of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson to America. The letters called for the restriction of the rights of colonists, which caused a firestorm after their publication by Boston newspapers. In the wake of the scandal, Franklin was removed as deputy postmaster general, and he returned to North America in 1775 as a devotee of the patriot cause.

In 1775, Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and appointed the first postmaster general for the colonies. In 1776, he was appointed commissioner to Canada and was one of five men to draft the Declaration of Independence.

Benjamin Franklin in Paris

After voting for independence in 1776, Franklin was elected commissioner to France, making him essentially the first U.S. ambassador to France. He set sail to negotiate a treaty for the country’s military and financial support. Much has been made of Franklin’s years in Paris,


chiefly his rich romantic life in his nine years abroad after Deborah’s death. At the age of 74, he even proposed marriage to a widow named Madame Helvetius, but she rejected him.

Franklin was embraced in France as much, if not more, for his wit and intellectual standing in the scientific community as for his status as a political appointee from a fledgling country. His reputation facilitated respect and entrees into closed communities, including that of King Louis XVI. And it was his adept diplomacy that led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War. After almost a decade in France, Franklin returned to the United States in 1785.

Founding Father: Drafting the U.S. Constitution

Benjamin Franklin was elected in 1787 to represent Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention, which drafted and ratified the new U.S. Constitution. The oldest delegate at the age of 81, Franklin initially supported proportional representation in Congress, but he fashioned the Great Compromise that resulted in proportional representation in the House of Representatives and equal representation by state in the Senate. In 1787, he helped found the Society for Political Inquiries, dedicated to improving knowledge of government.

When Did Benjamin Franklin Die?

Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the home of his daughter, Sarah Bache. He was 84, suffered from gout and had complained of ailments for some time, completing the final codicil to his will a little more than a year and a half prior to his death. He bequeathed most of his estate to Sarah and very little to William, whose opposition to the patriot cause still stung him. He also donated money that funded scholarships, schools and museums in Boston and Philadelphia.

Franklin had actually written his epitaph when he was 22: “The body of B. Franklin, Printer (Like the Cover of an Old Book Its Contents torn Out And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding) Lies Here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be Lost; For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More In a New and More Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.” In the end, however, the stone on the grave he shared with his wife in the cemetery of Philadelphia’s Christ Church reads simply, “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin 1790.”

Benjamin Franklin’s Accomplishments and Legacy

The image of Benjamin Franklin that has come down through history, along with the likeness on the $100 bill, is something of a caricature—a bald man in a frock coat holding a kite string with a key attached. But the scope of things he applied himself to was so broad it seems a shame. Founding universities and libraries, the post office, shaping the foreign policy of the fledgling United States, drafting the Declaration of Independence, publishing newspapers, warming us with the Franklin stove, pioneering advances in science, letting us see with bifocals and lighting our way with electricity—all from a man who never finished school but shaped his life through abundant reading and experience, a strong moral compass and an unflagging commitment to civic duty. Franklin illumined corners of American life that still have the lingering glow of his attention.

Adopted from: https://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-franklin-9301234

Benjamin Franklin

https://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-franklin-9301234


AMERICAN AUTHOR, SCIENTIST, AND STATESMAN

WRITTEN BY: Theodore Hornberger; Gordon S. Wood

Benjamin Franklin, also called Ben Franklin, pseudonym Richard Saunders, (born January 17 [January 6, Old Style], 1706, Boston, Massachusetts [U.S.]—died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat. One of the foremost of the Founding Fathers, Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers, represented the United States in France during the American Revolution, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He made important contributions to science, especially in the understanding of electricity, and is remembered for the wit, wisdom, and elegance of his writing.

Early Life (1706–23)

Franklin was born the 10th son of the 17 children of a man who made soap and candles, one of the lowliest of the artisan crafts. In an age that privileged the firstborn son, Franklin was, as he tartly noted in his Autobiography, “the youngest Son of the youngest Son for five Generations back.” He learned to read very early and had one year in grammar school and another under a private teacher, but his formal education ended at age 10. At 12 he was apprenticed to his brother James, a printer. His mastery of the printer’s trade, of which he was proud to the end of his life, was achieved between 1718 and 1723. In the same period he read tirelessly and taught himself to write effectively.

His first enthusiasm was for poetry, but, discouraged with the quality of his own, he gave it up. Prose was another matter. Young Franklin discovered a volume of The Spectator—featuring Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele’s famous periodical essays, which had appeared in England in 1711–12—and saw in it a means for improving his writing. He read these Spectator papers over and over, copied and recopied them, and then tried to recall them from memory. He even turned them into poetry and then back into prose. Franklin realized, as all the Founders did, that writing competently was such a rare talent in the 18th century that anyone who could do it well immediately attracted attention. “Prose writing” became, as he recalled in his Autobiography, “of great Use to me in the Course of my Life, and was a principal Means of my Advancement.”

In 1721 James Franklin founded a weekly newspaper, the New-England Courant, to which readers were invited to contribute. Benjamin, now 16, read and perhaps set in type these contributions and decided that he could do as well himself. In 1722 he wrote a series of 14 essays signed “Silence Dogood” in which he lampooned everything from funeral eulogies to the students of Harvard College. For one so young to assume the persona of a middle-aged woman was a remarkable feat, and Franklin took “exquisite Pleasure” in the fact that his brother and others became convinced that only a learned and ingenious wit could have written these essays.

Late in 1722 James Franklin got into trouble with the provincial authorities and was forbidden to print or publish the Courant. To keep the paper going, he discharged his younger brother from his original apprenticeship and made him the paper’s nominal publisher. New indentures were drawn up but not made public. Some months later, after a bitter quarrel, Benjamin

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secretly left home, sure that James would not “go to law” and reveal the subterfuge he had devised.

Youthful Adventures (1723–26)

Failing to find work in New York City, Franklin at age 17 went on to Quaker-dominated Philadelphia, a much more open and religiously tolerant place than Puritan Boston. One of the most memorable scenes of the Autobiography is the description of his arrival on a Sunday morning, tired and hungry. Finding a bakery, he asked for three pennies’ worth of bread and got “three great Puffy Rolls.” Carrying one under each arm and munching on the third, he walked up Market Street past the door of the Read family, where stood Deborah, his future wife. She saw him and “thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward ridiculous Appearance.”

A few weeks later he was rooming at the Reads’ and employed as a printer. By the spring of 1724 he was enjoying the companionship of other young men with a taste for reading, and he was also being urged to set up in business for himself by the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith. At Keith’s suggestion, Franklin returned to Boston to try to raise the necessary capital. His father thought him too young for such a venture, so Keith offered to foot the bill himself and arranged Franklin’s passage to England so that he could choose his type and make connections with London stationers and booksellers. Franklin exchanged “some promises” about marriage with Deborah Read and, with a young friend, James Ralph, as his companion, sailed for London in November 1724, just over a year after arriving in Philadelphia. Not until his ship was well out at sea did he realize that Governor Keith had not delivered the letters of credit and introduction he had promised.

In London Franklin quickly found employment in his trade and was able to lend money to Ralph, who was trying to establish himself as a writer. The two young men enjoyed the theatre and the other pleasures of the city, including women. While in London, Franklin wrote A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725), a Deistical pamphlet inspired by his having set type for William Wollaston’s moral tract, The Religion of Nature Delineated. Franklin argued in his essay that since human beings have no real freedom of choice, they are not morally responsible for their actions. This was perhaps a nice justification for his self-indulgent behaviour in London and his ignoring of Deborah, to whom he had written only once. He later repudiated the pamphlet, burning all but one of the copies still in his possession.

By 1726 Franklin was tiring of London. He considered becoming an itinerant teacher of swimming, but, when Thomas Denham, a Quaker merchant, offered him a clerkship in his store in Philadelphia with a prospect of fat commissions in the West Indian trade, he decided to return home.

Achievement Of Security And Fame (1726–53)

Denham died, however, a few months after Franklin entered his store. The young man, now 20, returned to the printing trade and in 1728 was able to set up a partnership with a friend. Two years later he borrowed money to become sole proprietor.

His private life at this time was extremely complicated. Deborah Read had married, but her husband had deserted her and disappeared. One matchmaking venture failed because Franklin

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wanted a dowry of £100 to pay off his business debt. A strong sexual drive, “that hard-to-be-govern’d Passion of Youth,” was sending him to “low Women,” and he thought he very much needed to get married. His affection for Deborah having “revived,” he “took her to Wife” on September 1, 1730. At this point Deborah may have been the only woman in Philadelphia who would have him, for he brought to the marriage an illegitimate son, William, just borne of a woman who has never been identified. Franklin’s common-law marriage lasted until Deborah’s death in 1774. They had a son, Franky, who died at age four, and a daughter, Sarah, who survived them both. William was brought up in the household and apparently did not get along well with Deborah.

Franklin and his partner’s first coup was securing the printing of Pennsylvania’s paper currency. Franklin helped get this business by writing A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency (1729), and later he also became public printer of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Other moneymaking ventures included the Pennsylvania Gazette, published by Franklin from 1729 and generally acknowledged as among the best of the colonial newspapers, and Poor Richard’s almanac, printed annually from 1732 to 1757. Despite some failures, Franklin prospered. Indeed, he made enough to lend money with interest and to invest in rental properties in Philadelphia and many coastal towns. He had franchises or partnerships with printers in the Carolinas, New York, and the British West Indies. By the late 1740s he had become one of the wealthiest colonists in the northern part of the North American continent.

As he made money, he concocted a variety of projects for social improvement. In 1727 he organized the Junto, or Leather Apron Club, to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy and to exchange knowledge of business affairs. The need of Junto members for easier access to books led in 1731 to the organization of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Through the Junto, Franklin proposed a paid city watch, or police force. A paper read to the same group resulted in the organization of a volunteer fire company. In 1743 he sought an intercolonial version of the Junto, which led to the formation of the American Philosophical Society. In 1749 he published Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania; in 1751 the Academy of Philadelphia, from which grew the University of Pennsylvania, was founded. He also became an enthusiastic member of the Freemasons and promoted their “enlightened” causes.

Although still a tradesman, he was picking up some political offices. He became clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature in 1736 and postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737. Prior to 1748, though, his most important political service was his part in organizing a militia for the defense of the colony against possible invasion by the French and the Spaniards, whose privateers were operating in the Delaware River.

In 1748 Franklin, at age 42, had become wealthy enough to retire from active business. He took off his leather apron and became a gentleman, a distinctive status in the 18th century. Since no busy artisan could be a gentleman, Franklin never again worked as a printer; instead, he became a silent partner in the printing firm of Franklin and Hall, realizing in the next 18 years an average profit of over £600 annually. He announced his new status as a gentleman by having his portrait painted in a velvet coat and a brown wig; he also acquired a coat of arms, bought several slaves, and moved to a new and more spacious house in “a more quiet Part of the

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Town.” Most important, as a gentleman and “master of [his] own time,” he decided to do what other gentlemen did—engage in what he termed “Philosophical Studies and Amusements.”

In the 1740s electricity was one of these curious amusements. It was introduced to Philadelphians by an electrical machine sent to the Library Company by one of Franklin’s English correspondents. In the winter of 1746–47, Franklin and three of his friends began to investigate electrical phenomena. Franklin sent piecemeal reports of his ideas and experiments to Peter Collinson, his Quaker correspondent in London. Since he did not know what European scientists might have already discovered, Franklin set forth his findings timidly. In 1751 Collinson had Franklin’s papers published in an 86-page book titled Experiments and Observations on Electricity. In the 18th century the book went through five English editions, three in French, and one each in Italian and German.

Franklin’s fame spread rapidly. The experiment he suggested to prove the identity of lightning and electricity was apparently first made in France before he tried the simpler but more dangerous expedient of flying a kite in a thunderstorm. But his other findings were original. He created the distinction between insulators and conductors. He invented a battery for storing electrical charges. He coined new English words for the new science of electricity—conductor, charge, discharge, condense, armature, electrify, and others. He showed that electricity was a single “fluid” with positive and negative or plus and minus charges and not, as traditionally thought, two kinds of fluids. And he demonstrated that the plus and minus charges, or states of electrification of bodies, had to occur in exactly equal amounts—a crucial scientific principle known today as the law of conservation of charge (see charge conservation).

Theodore Hornberger

Gordon S. Wood

Public Service (1753–85)

Despite the success of his electrical experiments, Franklin never thought science was as important as public service. As a leisured gentleman, he soon became involved in more high-powered public offices. He became a member of the Philadelphia City Council in 1748, justice of the peace in 1749, and in 1751 a city alderman and a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. But he had his sights on being part of a larger arena, the British Empire, which he regarded as “the greatest Political Structure Human Wisdom ever yet erected.” In 1753 Franklin became a royal officeholder, deputy postmaster general, in charge of mail in all the northern colonies. Thereafter he began to think in intercolonial terms. In 1754 his “Plan of Union” for the colonies was adopted by the Albany Congress, which was convened at the beginning of the French and Indian War and included representatives from the Iroquois Confederacy. The plan called for the establishment of a general council, with representatives from the several colonies, to organize a common defense against the French. Neither the colonial legislatures nor the king’s advisers were ready for such union, however, and the plan failed. But Franklin had become acquainted with important imperial officials, and his ambition to succeed within the imperial hierarchy had been whetted.

In 1757 he went to England as the agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly in order to get the family of William Penn, the proprietors under the colony’s charter, to allow the colonial legislature to tax their ungranted lands. But Franklin and some of his allies in the assembly had a larger goal

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of persuading the British government to oust the Penn family as the proprietors of Pennsylvania and make that colony a royal province. Except for a two-year return to Philadelphia in 1762–64, Franklin spent the next 18 years living in London, most of the time in the apartment of Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and her daughter Polly at 36 Craven Street near Charing Cross. His son, William, now age 27, and two slaves accompanied him to London. Deborah and their daughter, Sally, age 14, remained in Philadelphia.

Before he left for London, Franklin decided to bring his Poor Richard’salmanac to an end. While at sea in 1757, he completed a 12-page preface for the final 1758 edition of the almanac titled “Father Abraham’s Speech” and later known as the The Way to Wealth. In this preface Father Abraham cites only those proverbs that concern hard work, thrift, and financial prudence. The Way to Wealth eventually became the most widely reprinted of all Franklin’s works, including the Autobiography.

This time Franklin’s experience in London was very different from his sojourn in 1724–26. London was the largest city in Europe and the centre of the burgeoning British Empire, and Franklin was famous; consequently, he met everyone else who was famous, including David Hume, Captain James Cook, Joseph Priestley, and John Pringle, who was physician to Lord Bute, the king’s chief minister. In 1759 Franklin received an honorary degree from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, which led to his thereafter being called “Dr. Franklin.” Another honorary degree followed in 1762 from the University of Oxford. Everyone wanted to paint his portrait and make mezzotints for sale to the public. Franklin fell in love with the sophistication of London and England; by contrast, he disparaged the provinciality and vulgarity of America. He was very much the royalist, and he bragged of his connection with Lord Bute, which enabled him in 1762 to get his son, William, then age 31, appointed royal governor of New Jersey.

Reluctantly, Franklin had to go back to Pennsylvania in 1762 in order to look after his post office, but he promised his friends in London that he would soon return and perhaps stay forever in England. After touring the post offices up and down North America, a trip of 1,780 miles (2,900 km), he had to deal with an uprising of some Scotch-Irish settlers in the Paxton region of western Pennsylvania who were angry at the Quaker assembly’s unwillingness to finance military protection from the Indians on the frontier. After losing an election to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1764, Franklin could hardly wait to get back to London. Deborah stayed in Philadelphia, and Franklin never saw her again.

He soon had to face the problems arising from the Stamp Act of 1765, which created a firestorm of opposition in America. Like other colonial agents, Franklin opposed Parliament’s stamp tax, asserting that taxation ought to be the prerogative of the colonial legislatures. But once he saw that passage of the tax was inevitable, he sought to make the best of the situation. After all, he said, empires cost money. He ordered stamps for his printing firm in Philadelphia and procured for his friend John Hughes the stamp agency for Pennsylvania. In the process, he almost ruined his position in American public life and nearly cost Hughes his life.

Franklin was shocked by the mobs that effectively prevented enforcement of the Stamp Act everywhere in North America. He told Hughes to remain cool in the face of the mob. “A firm Loyalty to the Crown and faithful Adherence to the Government of this Nation…,” he said, “will always be the wisest Course for you and I to take, whatever may be the Madness of the

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Populace or their blind Leaders.” Only Franklin’s four-hour testimony before Parliament denouncing the act in 1766 saved his reputation in America. The experience shook Franklin, and his earlier confidence in the wisdom of British officials became punctuated by doubts and resentments. He began to feel what he called his “Americanness” as never before.

During the next four or five years Franklin sought to bridge the growing gulf between the colonies and the British government. Between 1765 and 1775 he wrote 126 newspaper pieces, most of which tried to explain each side to the other. But, as he said, the English thought him too American, while the Americans thought him too English. He had not, however, given up his ambition of acquiring a position in the imperial hierarchy. But in 1771 opposition by Lord Hillsborough, who had just been appointed head of the new American Department, left Franklin depressed and dispirited; in a mood of frustration, nostalgia, and defiance, he began writing his Autobiography, which eventually became one of the most widely read autobiographies ever published.

In recounting the first part of his life, up to age 25—the best part of the Autobiography, most critics agree—Franklin sought to soothe his wounds and justify his apparent failure in British politics. Most important, in this beginning part of his Autobiography, he in effect was telling the world (and his son) that, as a free man who had established himself against overwhelming odds as an independent and industrious artisan, he did not have to kowtow to some patronizing, privileged aristocrat.

When the signals from the British government shifted and Hillsborough was dismissed from the cabinet, Franklin dropped the writing of the Autobiography, which he would not resume until 1784 in France following the successful negotiation of the treaty establishing American independence. Franklin still thought he might be able to acquire an imperial office and work to hold the empire together. But he became involved in the affair of the Hutchinson letters—an affair that ultimately destroyed his position in England. In 1772 Franklin had sent back to Boston some letters written in the 1760s by Thomas Hutchinson, then lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, in which Hutchinson had made some indiscreet remarks about the need to abridge American liberties. Franklin naively thought that these letters would somehow throw blame for the imperial crisis on native officials such as Hutchinson and thus absolve the ministry in London of responsibility. This, Franklin believed, would allow his friends in the ministry, such as Lord Dartmouth, to settle the differences between the mother country and her colonies, with Franklin’s help.

The move backfired completely, and on January 29, 1774, Franklin stood silent in an amphitheatre near Whitehall while being viciously attacked by the British solicitor-general before the Privy Council and the court, most of whom were hooting and laughing. Two days later he was fired as deputy postmaster. After some futile efforts at reconciliation, he sailed for America in March 1775.

Although upon his arrival in Philadelphia Franklin was immediately elected to the Second Continental Congress, some Americans remained suspicious of his real loyalties. He had been so long abroad that some thought he might be a British spy. He was delighted that the Congress in 1776 sent him back to Europe as the premier agent in a commission seeking military aid and diplomatic recognition from France. He played on the French aristocracy’s

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liberal sympathies for the oppressed Americans and extracted not only diplomatic recognition of the new republic but also loan after loan from an increasingly impoverished French government. His image as the democratic folk genius from the wilderness of America preceded him, and he exploited it brilliantly for the American cause. His face appeared everywhere—on medallions, on snuffboxes, on candy boxes, in rings, in statues, in prints; women even did their hair à la Franklin. Franklin played his role to perfection. In violation of all protocol, he dressed in a simple brown-and-white linen suit and wore a fur cap, no wig, and no sword to the court of Versailles, the most formal and elaborate court in all of Europe. And the French aristocracy and court loved it, caught up as they were with the idea of America.

Beset with the pain of gout and a kidney stone, and surrounded by spies and his sometimes clumsy fellow commissioners—especially Arthur Leeof Virginia and John Adams of Massachusetts, who disliked and mistrusted him—Franklin nonetheless succeeded marvelously. He first secured military and diplomatic alliances with France in 1778 and then played a crucial role in bringing about the final peace treaty with Britain in 1783 (see Peace of Paris). In violation of their instructions and the French alliance, the American peace commissioners signed a separate peace with Britain. It was left to Franklin to apologize to the comte de Vergennes, Louis XVI’s chief minister, which he did in a beautifully wrought diplomatic letter.

No wonder the eight years in France were the happiest of Franklin’s life. He was doing what he most yearned to do—shaping events on a world stage. At this point, in 1784, he resumed work on his Autobiography, writing the second part of it, which presumes human control over one’s life.

Last Years (1785–90)

In 1785 Franklin reluctantly had to come to America to die, even though all his friends were in France. Although he feared he would be “a stranger in my own country,” he now knew that his destiny was linked to America.

His reception was not entirely welcoming. The family and friends of the Lees in Virginia and the Adamses in Massachusetts spread stories of his overweening love of France and his dissolute ways. The Congress treated him shabbily, ignoring his requests for some land in the West and a diplomatic appointment for his grandson. In 1788 he was reduced to petitioning the Congress with a pathetic “Sketch of the Services of B. Franklin to the United States,” which the Congress never answered. Just before his death in 1790, Franklin retaliated by signing a memorial requesting that the Congress abolish slavery in the United States. This memorandum provoked some congressmen into angry defenses of slavery, which Franklin exquisitely mocked in a newspaper piece published a month before he died.

Upon his death the Senate refused to go along with the House in declaring a month of mourning for Franklin. In contrast to the many expressions of French affection for Franklin, his fellow Americans gave him one public eulogy—and that was delivered by his inveterate enemy the Rev. William Smith, who passed over Franklin’s youth because it seemed embarrassing.

Following the publication of the Autobiography in 1794, Franklin’s youth was no longer embarrassing. In the succeeding decades, he became the hero of countless early 19th-century artisans and self-made businessmen who were seeking a justification of their rise and their

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moneymaking. They were the creators of the modern folksy image of Franklin, the man who came to personify the American dream.

Legacy

Franklin was not only the most famous American in the 18th century but also one of the most famous figures in the Western world of the 18th century; indeed, he is one of the most celebrated and influential Americans who has ever lived. Although one is apt to think of Franklin exclusively as an inventor, as an early version of Thomas Edison, which he was, his 18th-century fame came not simply from his many inventions but, more important, from his fundamental contributions to the science of electricity. If there had been a Nobel Prize for Physics in the 18th century, Franklin would have been a contender. Enhancing his fame was the fact that he was an American, a simple man from an obscure background who emerged from the wilds of America to dazzle the entire intellectual world. Most Europeans in the 18th century thought of America as a primitive, undeveloped place full of forests and savages and scarcely capable of producing enlightened thinkers. Yet Franklin’s electrical discoveries in the mid-18th century had surpassed the achievements of the most sophisticated scientists of Europe. Franklin became a living example of the natural untutored genius of the New World that was free from the encumbrances of a decadent and tired Old World—an image that he later parlayed into French support for the American Revolution.

Despite his great scientific achievements, however, Franklin always believed that public service was more important than science, and his political contributions to the formation of the United States were substantial. He had a hand in the writing of the Declaration of Independence, contributed to the drafting of the Articles of Confederation—America’s first national constitution—and was the oldest member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that wrote the Constitution of the United States of America in Philadelphia. More important, as diplomatic representative of the new American republic in France during the Revolution, he secured both diplomatic recognition and financial and military aid from the government of Louis XVI and was a crucial member of the commission that negotiated the treaty by which Great Britain recognized its former 13 colonies as a sovereign nation. Since no one else could have accomplished all that he did in France during the Revolution, he can quite plausibly be regarded as America’s greatest diplomat.

Equally significant perhaps were Franklin’s many contributions to the comfort and safety of daily life, especially in his adopted city of Philadelphia. No civic project was too large or too small for his interest. In addition to his lightning rod and his Franklin stove (a wood-burning stove that warmed American homes for more than 200 years), he invented bifocal glasses, the odometer, and the glass harmonica (armonica). He had ideas about everything—from the nature of the Gulf Stream to the cause of the common cold. He suggested the notions of matching grants and Daylight Saving Time. Almost single-handedly he helped to create a civic society for the inhabitants of Philadelphia. Moreover, he helped to establish new institutions that people now take for granted: a fire company, a library, an insurance company, an academy, and a hospital.

Probably Franklin’s most important invention was himself. He created so many personas in his newspaper writings and almanac and in his posthumously published Autobiography that it is

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difficult to know who he really was. Following his death in 1790, he became so identified during the 19th century with the persona of his Autobiography and the Poor Richard maxims of his almanac—e.g., “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”—that he acquired the image of the self-made moralist obsessed with the getting and saving of money. Consequently, many imaginative writers, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and D.H. Lawrence, attacked Franklin as a symbol of America’s middle-class moneymaking business values. Indeed, early in the 20th century the famous German sociologist Max Weber found Franklin to be the perfect exemplar of the “Protestant ethic” and the modern capitalistic spirit. Although Franklin did indeed become a wealthy tradesman by his early 40s, when he retired from his business, during his lifetime in the 18th century he was not identified as a self-made businessman or a budding capitalist. That image was a creation of the 19th century. But as long as America continues to be pictured as the land of enterprise and opportunity, where striving and hard work can lead to success, then that image of Franklin is the one that is likely to endure.

Gordon S. Wood

Adopted from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin

Benjamin Franklin Biography

One of the founding fathers of the USA, Benjamin Franklin was a multi-talented personality. He was a scientist, inventor, author, musician and a statesman. Check out this biography for detailed information on his life.

Quick Facts

Birthday: January 17, 1706

Nationality: American

Famous: Quotes By Benjamin Franklin Poorly Educated

Sun Sign: Capricorn

Died at Age: 84

Born In: Boston, Massachusetts Bay

Famous As: Founding Father of The United States

Political Ideology: Independent

Spouse/Ex-: Deborah Read (M. 1730–1774)

Father: Josiah Franklin

Mother: Abiah Folger

Children: Francis Folger Franklin, Sarah Franklin Bache, William Franklin

Died On: April 17, 1790

Place of Death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

City, States, Provinces & Districts: Boston, Massachusetts

Personality: ENTP

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Discoveries/Inventions: Lightning Rod, Bifocals, Franklin Stove, Carriage Odometer, Glass Armonica, Bifocal Glasses and The Flexible Urinary Catheter

Benjamin Franklin was a distinguished human being, who possessed uncanny mind and sharp wit, which he used tirelessly for the betterment of his country and society at large. Franklin is credited for many inventions including the swim fins, Franklin stove, catheter, library chair, step ladder, lightning rod, bifocal glasses etc; however, he never patented any of them. He did so, as he believed that his innovations were not mere sources of moneymaking but would raise the living standards of the masses. His experiments with the lightning, gained him recognition throughout the world. Benjamin Franklin played a vital role in American history as he was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution, thus he is considered as one of the pivotal personalities, who shaped America. His influence has been so great on the country that many scholars have gone as far as to describe him as "the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States." Though, as a child he was not able to continue his education beyond elementary level but there was hardly a renowned university that did not felicitate him with an honorary degree for his exemplary work.

Childhood & Early Life

• Born in Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin was baptized at Old South Meeting House. His father, Josiah Franklin, wanted him to become a clergyman but due to monetary constraints, he was able to attend school for only two years.

• He was fond of reading, therefore he pretty much self-educated himself by extensive reading. By the age of 12, under the guidance of his brother James, who was a printer, he began to learn tricks of the trade.

• At the age of 17, he ran away from home to start off his new life in Philadelphia.

Career

• In Philadelphia, Franklin worked in several print shops but did not find much success, thus moved to London, where he worked as a typesetter.

• In 1726, he returned to Philadelphia as an employee of Thomas Denham and began to take care of his business.

• At the age of 21, in 1727 he established a group named the Junto, which included like-minded people who wanted to bring a change in the society and express their creativity.

• The group (Junto) loved to read but the availability of books was scarce at that time, thus, they began to collect books on various genres and this led to the formation of first subscription library in America.

• In 1731, he wrote charter for the Library Company of Philadelphia and thus came in existence first American library.

• He bought a newspaper called the ‘Pennsylvania Gazette’ and published ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack’ in 1733, a paper that featured cooking recipes, predictions and weather reports.

• He established the nation’s first volunteer firefighting organization, Union Fire Company in 1736, which became one of his many remarkable contributions to the society.


• He contributed immensely to the initial study of demographics and noted the phenomena of growing human population.

• His 1751 work ‘Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.’ proved inspirational for Thomas Malthus and Adam Smith.

• He also helped organize the American Philosophical Society in 1743, the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751 and the Philadelphia Contribution for Insurance against Loss by Fire in 1752. These organizations still exist today.

• Franklin received the Copley medal in 1753 from the Royal society of London and later on was elected as a Fellow of the Society, in 1756.

• His kite experiment proved that lightning is electricity and led to the invention of the lightning rod.

• As a politician, he fought for the rights of his country, working actively for uniting the colonies and for independence.

• He assisted in drafting the ‘Declaration of Independence’ in 1776. The same year he was appointed as the commissioner of the United States to France, a role he essayed with great finesse and success.

• He was made the President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, in 1785. Franklin was selected as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, in 1787.

Major Works

• One of his earliest successful literary endeavors was Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732 to 1758), which was a pamphlet published and in it Franklin wrote under the pseudonym “Poor Richard”.

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which he wrote between 1771 and 1790 (Published posthumously) is revered as a classic in the genre, even today.

• He published several path breaking works, which included ‘The Way to Wealth’ (1758), which was an ingenious guide for managing personal finances and developing entrepreneurial skills.

Awards & Achievements

• He was honored by the Royal Society’s Copley Medal (1753), for his exemplary work in the field of electricity. In the same year i.e. in 1753, he received honorary degrees from Harvard as well as Yale University, for his extraordinary contribution to society through his scientific innovations.

Personal Life & Legacy

• Franklin married his childhood friend, Deborah Reed, in 1730 and they had two children. The couple also brought up William, Franklin’s illegitimate son as part of the family.

• His love for humanity led to his involvement in community affairs and politics, and fighting for the improvement of people’s life became his motto.

• He finally succumbed to age and health issues, at the age of 84. He took his last breath in Philadelphia and his remains were buried at Christ Church Burial Ground.


• Franklin was no less a hero to the American public than George Washington, therefore, his legacy is ubiquitous around the nation.

• In Franklin’s honor, the Benjamin Franklin Award is given to recognize excellence in independent publishing.

• His images can be seen adorning various dollar bills and postage stamps.

• Many places in the United States of America such as North Franklin Township, Nebraska and North Franklin, Maine are named after Benjamin Franklin.

• There is a bridge over the Delaware River in the U.S. named after Franklin and it is known as Benjamin Franklin Bridge; it connects Philadelphia and Camden.

Trivia

• He was very fond of chess and also dabbled in music. He could play several musical instruments. He was also a gifted author and wrote several essays, satires etc under guise.

• He invented many ingenious apparatuses including the lightning rod, bifocals, glass harmonica and the ‘Franklin Stove’.

• From middle age onward he was plagued by obesity, which later on led to development of various other health issues, especially that of gout.

• His funeral ceremony was attended by 20,000 people approximately,.

• Electric charge (cgs unit) shares his namesake and is known as Fr.

• His Maritime Observations published, in 1786 included rough ideas about sea anchors, catamaran hulls, watertight compartments and even a soup bowl design which would stay balanced in stormy weather.

• He is believed to be the first person to have used the Decision making technique of drawing a pro and con list, an example of which was seen in a letter he wrote to Joseph Priestley in 1772.

Adopted from: https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/benjamin-franklin-2986.php

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