Benjamin Franklin: One Of The Smartest Men

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Though Ben only had one year of schooling he was educated and loved to read and write. He worked as an apprentice to his brother, James, who was a printer, when he was fifteen years old. At the age of seventeen, Ben ran away and started a new life in Philadelphia as a result of arguments with James. Franklin found work as an apprentice printer and did so well the provincial governor of

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston Massachusetts.His father was a soap and candle maker and he had a total of 15 children and two wives, Ben was the youngest son. Ben Franklin is most influential for being his contributions of science (electricity), his creations of the almanac/newspapers, and him also being one of the founding fathers of the Declaration of Independence.

As Franklin’s printing business prospered, he became more involved in civic affairs. Starting in the 1730s, he helped establish a number of community organizations in Philadelphia. This includes a lending library, the city’s first fire company, a police patrol and the American Philosophical Society, a group devoted to the sciences and other scholarly pursuits. Franklin also organized the Pennsylvania militia, raised funds to build a city hospital and spearheaded a program to pave and light city streets. Also Franklin was instrumental in the creation of the Academy of Philadelphia, a college which opened in 1751 and became known as the University of Pennsylvania in 1791.

Franklin sites a strong work ethic throughout his autobiography as a means of advancement in life. At 17 years of age, he ran away to New York and the first thing he did was to seek suitable employment. After experiencing many a hardship Franklin remained resolved and finally established himself in Philadelphia were he found work and much favor with whomever he acquainted himself with. He firmly was against wasting time on frivolous activities and encouraged the reader to mind their business and be industrious in all things. This too was a practice he implemented his whole life and was the reason he was rewarded on several occasions with better opportunities and advancement in business.

Sometime between 1730 and 1731 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, William Franklin was born to Benjamin Franklin. His mother is not known, and William is said to be illegitimate. His step-mother; Benjamin’s wife, Deborah Read hated him, and could not stand his very presence. At a very young age, William was placed in foster care, and then brought back home and raised under the supervision of his

Benjamin Franklin was born January 17, of the year 1706, in Boston, MA, which was the

kite during a lightening storm. Perhaps you picture him a older man with spectacles propped up on his nose standing in a great room full of distinguished gentlemen signing the Declaration of Independence. Both of these facts about Benjamin Franklin's life would be true. However, there was so much more to Mr. Franklin. He was a diplomat, a statesman, a scientist, and a writer. His contributions to our society were more than just to America but to the world. For the purpose of this paper we will just discuss the inventions he produced which had a world impact. (Fish 2).

Parts three and four are the business portions of The Autobiography. Part three, the longest of the four sections, began in 1788. This portion “marks a gradual change in focus from personal anecdotes and advice on virtue to a comparatively dry rendering of his public activities and Philadelphia’s political concerns” (Moss and Wilson 26). His change in topic, however, is not all boring. He describes his success in his everyday life. For example, Franklin discusses his jobs and, more in depth, the part he played in the French and Indian War. He also briefly talks about his inventions and experiments with electricity. All of his involvements back up the belief of his being a man of the Enlightenment period. He strived to succeed and never settled for less. This is evident in part four of The Autobiography. Franklin discusses his travels to England, where he acts as a financial advisor (Moss and Wilson 26).

Benjamin Franklin Parker Griffin U.S. History 11/16/15 Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, Scientist, statesman, and many other impressing things. His ideas helped to change the way that people thought in the colonies. He is one of the best known founding fathers and was one of the most famous people of his time.

He was a true inventor even at the age of 11; Benjamin loved to swim so he invented the swimming fins. As we all know he also loved to read, but it was difficult to read with one pair of glasses and then try to see out of another pair so Benjamin just invented the bifocal. There were numerous inventions, but some of the most beneficial are: Franklin stove, lightning rod, flexible catheter and of course the bifocals. The Franklin stove is one of Benjamin’s inventions that changed the way people in colonial times warmed their homes. He invented the stove in 1742 it worked by giving more heat and less smoke in doing so you use less wood.

This took place in his famous kite experiment in 1749. To share his discoveries with the world, Franklin wrote and published Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America. In response to this, The Royal Society, England’s scientific group, awarded him with the Copley Medal in 1753, and Franklin became a member. Both Harvard and Yale universities gave him degrees in Master of Arts (Fleming 6-8). His invention of the lightning rod helped reduce the amount of fires throughout the colonies because less lightning struck houses (Kurland

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a detailed account of the illustrious experiences of Benjamin Franklin. Though the cultural differences in writing has changed since the 18th century one can learn a lot about one of America’s greatest forefathers through this book. It accounts for Franklin’s life when he was born January 17th, 1706 till the year 1757. Unfortunately, he died in 1790 and was never able to finish his autobiography. However, the book thoroughly details the early life of Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin was involved in many well-known public projects. In 1731 he founded what was probably the first public library in America, chartered in 1742 as the Philadelphia Library. He first published Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1732, under the pen name Richard Saunders. This volume quickly gained a reputation for its practical wisdom. In 1736 Franklin became clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the next year he became the deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. About this time, he organized the first fire company in that city and introduced methods and ideas for the improvement of street paving and lighting. Always interested in scientific studies, he devised a means to correct undue smoking of chimneys and invented, around 1744, the Franklin stove, which furnished greater heat with a reduced consumption of fuel.

Franklin published his theories in a book titled "Experiments and Observations on Electricity Made at Philadelphia". It became a best seller in Europe as well as in the colonies. The main topic of this book was Franklin's theory that lightning was electrical energy. This was not a new idea, but Benjamin Franklin was the first to perform an experiment on it. He said that if a metal rod was to be placed on top of a tower or a tall building, it would be struck by lightning and hold an electrical charge. Many scientists in Europe tried this experiment, and some had successful results. When a French scientist, De Lor, attempted to repeat one of the proposed experiments from the book a huge crowd of curious people had gathered in Paris to see it.

In spite of the fact that Franklin was hardly a puritan, he was nevertheless very much a child of the Puritans. This is not displayed merely in his promotion of the virtues, but in his abstaining from excessiveness in eating, drinking, conversation, or whatever. Franklin is strongly influenced with self-governance In numerous ways, this is, to someone coming to it for the first time, a very amazing book. Franklin is, of course, one of the most celebrated Americans who ever lived, and his credentials in a wide arrangement of endeavors are a part of American knowledge and popular history. A great deal of this knowledge and numerous of his accomplishments are missing from this account of his life. He never finished the autobiography, earlier in his life on account of the fact that he was too engaged with what he terms public employment’s, and later in life by virtue of the opium he was taking for kidney stones left him incapable to concentrate adequately. Had Franklin been able to write about every period of his life and all of his achievements, his autobiography would have been one of the most exceptional and outstanding documents every produced. It is astonishingly imperious. However, his record as an office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives. He was one of the most important statesmen in the new America and was a historical figure who shaped our nations history. He was a very