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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

History of United States 109

Jeffrey Francway

April 22, 2008

 
Benjamin Franklin was an American printer and publisher, author, inventor, scientist, and who was a diplomat born on January17th 1706 and died in Philadelphia on April 17th 1790. Franklin was one of ten sons of seventeen children of a man by the name of Josiah who was a soap and candle maker and mother by the name of Abiah, a discrete and virtuous woman (Van Doren 7). Ben was raised in a Puritan heritage household which they had left to avoid England's Restoration Era of 1683. Franklin had a blend of Puritan heritage, Enlightenment philosophy, and New World environment ideals. Ben Franklin had a fascination public and interpersonal life. Franklin's life consisted of his reflections of his own behaviors and embracing curiosities of the whole moral and physical world around him (Ford 60-64). Ben married in September 1st 1730 to a woman by the name of Deborah Read. Franklin was an apprentice under his brother and a printer of a Boston newspaper called the Pennsylvania Gazette, the Almanac of Poor Richard and a good share of printing in that era (Van Doren 69). Ben also a philosopher, who followed the secular world view of Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke and favorite author named Joseph Addison. Franklin was a civic leader starting in 1727 who helped in putting together the Organization of Junto, a club of tradesmen in Pennsylvania who helped with civic improvements of that city which were: a library, fire company, college, insurance company and hospital (Van Doren 63). Ben was also an inventor who discovered bifocals and the ability to harness electricity through a lightening bolt in 1746 (Phelps 485). These achievements were just a small fraction of what Franklin was capable of doing. Ben was also a politician and Diplomat contributing of the affairs of the Continental Congress, drafting and signer of the Declaration of Independence and The Treaty of Paris during the...