Prof. Swanson
Critical Periods in History
Final paper
Ben Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston,
on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler
who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest
son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice
to his brother James, a printer, who published the “New England Courant.”
To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal
editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going
to New York first, then to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October, 1723.
He soon obtained work as
a printer, but after a few months he was induced by Governor Keith to go
to London, where finding Keith’s promises empty, he again worked as a compositor
till he was brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who
gave him a position in his business. On Denman’s death he returned
to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from
which he published, ”The Pennsylvania Gazette,”to which he contributed
many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local
reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous “Poor Richard’s Almanac”
for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those small utterances
of worldly wisdom, which are the basis of a large part of his reputation.
In 1758, the year in which
he ceases in writing for the Almanac, he printed in it “Father Abraham’s
Sermon,” now regarded as the most famous piece of Literature in Colonial
America. Meantime Ben Franklin was concerning himself more and more
with public affairs. He set forth a scheme for an academy, which
was taken up later and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania;
and he founded an “American Philosophical Society” for the purpose of enabling
scientific men to communicate their discoveries to one another. He
himself had already begun his electrical researches, which, with other
scientific inquiries, he called on in the intervals of money-making and
politics to the end of his life.
In 1748 he sold his business
in order to get leisure for study, having now acquired comparative wealth;
and in a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with
the learned throughout Europe. In politics he proved very able both
as an administrator and as a controversialist’ but his record as an office
holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives.
His most notable service in politics was his reform of the postal system;
but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his services in connection
with the relations of the Colonies with Great Britain, and later with France.
In 1757 he was sent to England to protest against
the influence of the Penns in the government of the colony, and for five
years he remained there, striving to enlighten the people and the ministry
of England as to Colonial Conditions. On his return to America he
played an honorable part in the Paxton affair, through which he lost his
seat in the Assembly; but in 1764 he was again dispatched to England as
an agent for the colony, this time to petition the King to resume the government
from the hands of the proprietors.
In London he actively opposed the proposed Stamp Act, but lost the credit for this and much of his popularity through his securing for a friend the office of stamp agent in America. Even his effective work in helping to obtain the repeal of the act left him still a suspect; but he continued his efforts to present the case for the Colonies as the troubles thickened toward the crisis of the Revolution. In 1767 he crossed to France, where he was perceived with honor; but before his return home in 1775 he lost his position as postmaster through his share in divulging to Massachusetts the famous letter of Hutchinson and Oliver. On his arrival in Philadelphia he was chosen a member of the Continental Congress and in 1777 he was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States. There he remained until 1785, the favorite of French society; and with such success did he conduct the affairs of his country that when he finally returned he received a place only second to that of Washington as the champion of American independence. He died on April 17, 1790.