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Benjamin Franklin

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

One of the leading figures of early American history, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor and diplomat. Born into a Boston family of modest means, Franklin had little formal education. He went on to start a successful printing business in Philadelphia and grew wealthy. Franklin was deeply active in public affairs in his adopted city, where he helped launch a lending library, hospital and college and garnered acclaim for his experiments with electricity, among other projects. During the American Revolution , he served in the Second Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He also negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War (1775-83). In 1787, in his final significant act of public service, he was a delegate to the convention that produced the U.S. Constitution .

Benjamin Franklin’s Early Years

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in colonial Boston. His father, Josiah Franklin (1657-1745), a native of England, was a candle and soap maker who married twice and had 17 children. Franklin’s mother was Abiah Folger (1667-1752) of Nantucket, Massachusetts , Josiah’s second wife. Franklin was the eighth of Abiah and Josiah’s 10 offspring.

Did you know? Benjamin Franklin is the only Founding Father  to have signed all four of the key documents establishing the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain (1783) and the U.S. Constitution (1787).

Franklin’s formal education was limited and ended when he was 10; however, he was an avid reader and taught himself to become a skilled writer. In 1718, at age 12, he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a Boston printer. By age 16, Franklin was contributing essays (under the pseudonym Silence Dogood) to a newspaper published by his brother. At age 17, Franklin ran away from his apprenticeship to Philadelphia, where he found work as a printer. In late 1724, he traveled to London, England, and again found employment in the printing business.

Benjamin Franklin: Printer and Publisher

Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726, and two years later opened a printing shop. The business became highly successful producing a range of materials, including government pamphlets, books and currency. In 1729, Franklin became the owner and publisher of a colonial newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette , which proved popular—and to which he contributed much of the content, often using pseudonyms. Franklin achieved fame and further financial success with “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” which he published every year from 1733 to 1758. The almanac became known for its witty sayings, which often had to do with the importance of diligence and frugality, such as “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

In 1730, Franklin began living with Deborah Read (c. 1705-74), the daughter of his former Philadelphia landlady, as his common-law wife. Read’s first husband had abandoned her; however, due to bigamy laws, she and Franklin could not have an official wedding ceremony. Franklin and Read had a son, Francis Folger Franklin (1732-36), who died of smallpox at age 4, and a daughter, Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808). Franklin had another son, William Franklin (c. 1730-1813), who was born out of wedlock. William Franklin served as the last colonial governor of New Jersey , from 1763 to 1776, and remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution . He died in exile in England.

Benjamin Franklin and Philadelphia

As Franklin’s printing business prospered, he became increasingly involved in civic affairs. Starting in the 1730s, he helped establish a number of community organizations in Philadelphia, including a lending library (it was founded in 1731, a time when books weren’t widely available in the colonies, and remained the largest U.S. public library until the 1850s), 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. Additionally, 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 also was a key figure in the colonial postal system. In 1737, the British appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia, and he went on to become, in 1753, joint postmaster general for all the American colonies. In this role he instituted various measures to improve mail service; however, the British dismissed him from the job in 1774 because he was deemed too sympathetic to colonial interests. In July 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Franklin the first postmaster general of the United States, giving him authority over all post offices from Massachusetts to Georgia . He held this position until November 1776, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law. (The first U.S. postage stamps, issued on July 1, 1847, featured images of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington .)

Benjamin Franklin's Inventions

In 1748, Franklin, then 42 years old, had expanded his printing business throughout the colonies and become successful enough to stop working. Retirement allowed him to concentrate on public service and also pursue more fully his longtime interest in science. In the 1740s, he conducted experiments that contributed to the understanding of electricity, and invented the lightning rod, which protected buildings from fires caused by lightning. In 1752, he conducted his famous kite experiment and demonstrated that lightning is electricity. Franklin also coined a number of electricity-related terms, including battery, charge and conductor.

In addition to electricity, Franklin studied a number of other topics, including ocean currents, meteorology, causes of the common cold and refrigeration. He developed the Franklin stove, which provided more heat while using less fuel than other stoves, and bifocal eyeglasses, which allow for distance and reading use. In the early 1760s, Franklin invented a musical instrument called the glass armonica. Composers such as Ludwig Beethoven (1770-1827) and Wolfgang Mozart (1756-91) wrote music for Franklin’s armonica; however, by the early part of the 19th century, the once-popular instrument had largely fallen out of use.

READ MORE: 11 Surprising Facts About Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution

In 1754, at a meeting of colonial representatives in Albany, New York , Franklin proposed a plan for uniting the colonies under a national congress. Although his Albany Plan was rejected, it helped lay the groundwork for the Articles of Confederation , which became the first constitution of the United States when ratified in 1781.

In 1757, Franklin traveled to London as a representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, to which he was elected in 1751. Over several years, he worked to settle a tax dispute and other issues involving descendants of William Penn (1644-1718), the owners of the colony of Pennsylvania. After a brief period back in the U.S., Franklin lived primarily in London until 1775. While he was abroad, the British government began, in the mid-1760s, to impose a series of regulatory measures to assert greater control over its American colonies. In 1766, Franklin testified in the British Parliament against the Stamp Act of 1765, which required that all legal documents, newspapers, books, playing cards and other printed materials in the American colonies carry a tax stamp. Although the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, additional regulatory measures followed, leading to ever-increasing anti-British sentiment and eventual armed uprising in the American colonies .

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in May 1775, shortly after the Revolutionary War (1775-83) had begun, and was selected to serve as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, America’s governing body at the time. In 1776, he was part of the five-member committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence , in which the 13 American colonies declared their freedom from British rule. That same year, Congress sent Franklin to France to enlist that nation’s help with the Revolutionary War. In February 1778, the French signed a military alliance with America and went on to provide soldiers, supplies and money that proved critical to America’s victory in the war.

As minister to France starting in 1778, Franklin helped negotiate and draft the 1783  Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.

Benjamin Franklin’s Later Years

In 1785, Franklin left France and returned once again to Philadelphia. In 1787, he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. (The 81-year-old Franklin was the convention’s oldest delegate.) At the end of the convention, in September 1787, he urged his fellow delegates to support the heavily debated new document. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the required nine states in June 1788, and George Washington (1732-99) was inaugurated as America’s first president in April 1789.

Franklin died a year later, at age 84, on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia. Following a funeral that was attended by an estimated 20,000 people, he was buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church cemetery. In his will, he left money to Boston and Philadelphia, which was later used to establish a trade school and a science museum and fund scholarships and other community projects.

More than 200 years after his death, Franklin remains one of the most celebrated figures in U.S. history. His image appears on the $100 bill, and towns, schools and businesses across America are named for him.

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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the Founding Fathers who never served as president but was a respected inventor, publisher, scientist and diplomat.

Quick Facts

Silence dogood, living in london, wife and children, life in philadelphia, poor richard's almanack, scientist and inventor, electricity, election to the government, stamp act and declaration of independence, life in paris, drafting the u.s. constitution, accomplishments, who was benjamin franklin.

Benjamin Franklin 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.

FULL NAME: Benjamin Franklin BORN: January 17, 1706 DIED: April 17, 1790 BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts SPOUSE: Deborah Read (1730-1774) CHILDREN: William, Francis, Sarah ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

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

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

Franklin 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 other sons had done, Josiah apprenticed 12-year-old Franklin at the print shop run by his older brother James.

Although James mistreated and frequently beat his younger brother, Franklin 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 Franklin 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, Franklin 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.

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.)

In 1723, after Franklin moved from Boston to Philadelphia, he lodged at the home of John Read, where he met and courted his landlord’s daughter Deborah.

After Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726, he discovered that Deborah had married in the interim, only to be abandoned by her husband just months after the wedding.

The future Founding Father 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 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.

After his return to Philadelphia in 1726, Franklin 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 . Nonetheless, 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.

At the end of 1732, 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.”

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.

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 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 University of Oxford and the 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 .

In 1752, 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.

In 1748, Franklin acquired the first of several enslaved people to work in his 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 enslaved people 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 trade.

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 enslaved people but leaving behind Deborah and Sarah.

He spent much 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.

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.

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 the court 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.

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.

Franklin was never elected president of the United States. However, he played an important role as one of eight 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 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 his son 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.”

The image of Franklin that has come down through history, along with his 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, helping to draft 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 illuminated corners of American life that still have the lingering glow of his attention.

• A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
• Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
• From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.
• So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
• In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
• Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.
• There never was a good war or a bad peace.
• In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
• Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.
• He does not possess wealth, it possesses him.
• Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.

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Benjamin franklin, references ( show ).

• I B Cohen, Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin
• Obituary in The Times See THIS LINK
• P C Pasles, The Lost Squares of Dr. Franklin, American Mathematical Monthly 108 (2001) , 489 - 511 .

Additional Resources ( show )

Other pages about Benjamin Franklin:

• Times obituary
• An entry in The Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles ,
• Another entry in The Mathematical Gazetteer ,
• Miller's postage stamps

Other websites about Benjamin Franklin:

• Kevin Brown
• Paul C Pasles

Honours ( show )

Honours awarded to Benjamin Franklin

• Royal Society Copley Medal 1753
• Fellow of the Royal Society 1756
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783
• Lunar features Crater Franklin
• Paris Street names Rue Benjamin Franklin (16 th Arrondissement )

Cross-references ( show )

• Other: 1950 ICM - Cambridge USA
• Other: Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics (M)
• Other: Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Other: Jeff Miller's postage stamps
• Other: London Learned Societies
• Other: London individuals D-G
• Other: Oxford Institutions and Colleges

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Benjamin franklin, june 14, 2018.

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706—April 17, 1790) was a scientist, an inventor, a writer, and a statesman. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He learned to read at an early age. But his father, Josiah Franklin, pulled him out of school when he was 10 years old. He sent Ben to work in the family candle and soap shop. Ben grew restless with the work. When he turned 12, his father sent him to work in a printer’s shop. It was owned by Ben’s older brother, James.

Ben learned all about the newspaper business. At the time, printing was done by hand. The printer laid out the page letter by letter on a printing press. Ben learned how to build sentences with care. He also learned to write. He wrote political essays. He did not sign his name to the essays. Instead, he signed them Silence Dogood. This was so readers would think they were written by an ordinary person in the town. But his brother James did not want Ben to write. He often beat him. So at 16, Ben fled to Philadelphia. He would call the city home for the rest of his life.

Ambition and Invention

Franklin became known in Philadelphia as a hardworking young man. In 1728, he and a friend opened a print shop. Then in 1729, he bought the Pennsylvania Gazette. He turned it into the most widely read newspaper in the American colonies. At the time, newspapers were the best way to spread ideas. Newspapers spread the ideas that would eventually bring about the American Revolution.

Over the years, Franklin became even more well-known. In 1732, he began publishing the yearly Poor Richard’s Almanack. He wrote in the voice of a farmer named Poor Richard. The almanac contained weather forecasts, information about astronomy, poetry, and other amusements. It became famous for its folksy proverbs. Two of the most famous proverbs are “No pains without gains” and “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

GRAPHICAARTIS/GETTY IMAGES

Franklin became one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. In 1748, he retired from the print business. He wanted to devote his time to science. His famous kite-and-key experiment in 1752 demonstrated that lighting was electricity. He invented the lightning rod. Some of the terms he coined are still used today, such as battery, charge, and electrify. He also invented bifocal eyeglasses and maybe even the first rocking chair.

Founding Father

In 1751, Franklin was elected as a representative to the Pennsylvania Assembly. He was reelected every year until 1764.

In March 1765, the British government passed the Stamp Act. This made the North American colonists angry. The act required that the colonists pay a tax on printed materials. The colonists used a lot of printed material. They used print documents for business and legal matters. At the time, Franklin was living in London. He was Pennsylvania’s agent in Britain. He went before the British Parliament to condemn the tax. The bill was repealed in 1766.

Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. He believed the American colonies should separate from English rule. In 1776, he joined a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. He then traveled to France. There, he negotiated a treaty. France agreed to lend the colonies money and soldiers to fight the war against Britain. After the war, Franklin went to Britain with John Adams and John Jay. They negotiated terms of peace with Britain. This led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

In 1787, Franklin represented the state of Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. The purpose of the convention was to draft the U.S. Constitution. At 81, he was the oldest delegate. He went on to serve as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Franklin once owned a slave. But in 1790, he urged Congress to abolish slavery in the U.S.

Franklin died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His memoirs were published the following year. They are known today as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

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Chronological events in the life of Benjamin Franklin

1706 Sunday January 17: Benjamin Franklin was born in the City of Boston . His parents were Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger.

1714-1715 Attended South Grammar School ( Boston Latin ).

1715-1716 Attended George Brownell’s English School.

1717 Franklin was briefly indentured as a cutler. As an avid swimmer Franklin invented swim fins for his hands.

1718 At age 12 started apprenticeship as a printer in his older brother, James, printing shop.

1720 Moved out of his home into a boarding house.

1721 Brother James started publishing The New England Courant , the first American newspaper to use literary content and humorous essays.

1722 Franklin published his first letter in the Courant under the pen name of “Silence Dogood”, a fictional widow of a country minister who has strong opinions. He became a vegetarian.

1723 His brother James was charged with contempt against law authorities. Benjamin took over the printing business while James served time in jail.

Leaved Boston for New York where he failed to find employment. He proceeded to Philadelphia where he rented a room in John Read’s house. Franklin eventually married his daughter Deborah Read in 1730.

In Philadelphia he found work as a printer with Samuel Keimer.

1724 Benjamin returned to Boston to open a printing shop but his father did not loan him the money. Returned to Philadelphia and under the encouragement of Provincial Pennsylvania Governor William Keith traveled to London to buy printing equipment. His loan never materialized and was unable to travel back to America.

In London he was employed by printers Samuel Palmer and John Watts.

1725 Published his first pamphlet in London “A Dissertation on Liberty & Necessity, Pleasure and Pain”.

1726 Franklin returned to Philadelphia with a loan provided by Thomas Denham. To pay his debt he worked as a clerk, shopkeeper and bookkeeper in Denham’s imported goods store.

He returned to work for Samuel Keimer printing shop.

1727 Suffered his first pleurisy attack.

In Philadelphia Franklin founded the Junto Club , a group of young men who met on Friday evenings to discuss intellectual, personal, business and community topics. The Junto Club lasted until 1765.

1728 Franklin and Hugh Meredith opened their own printing shop with a loan from Meredith’s father.

1729 Purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette from former employer Samuel Keimer. The Gazette became one of the most prominent publications in Colonial America.

1730 Elected the official government printer for Pennsylvania.

Franklin bought Meredith’s share in the printing shop and became the sole owner.

Joined in common-law marriage with Deborah Read.

William Franklin is born out of wedlock to an unidentified mother.

1731 Franklin joined the Freemasons

Published “Apology for Printers” defending freedom of the press.

Entered a partnership with Thomas Whitmarsh in South Carolina. Franklin provided printing equipment in return for one third of the profits over six years, creating the first commercial franchise .

1732 Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read have their first child, Francis Folger Franklin.

Published the first edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack  under the pseudonym “Richard Saunders”. It became an instant best seller in the colonies.

1734 Elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mason of Pennsylvania.

1735 Brother James died in Newport, Rhode Island.

1736 Franklin was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

His son, Francis Folger, died of smallpox at age 4.

Helped organize the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia which trained and organized firemen.

1737 Appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia, his service continued until 1753.

1739 Started campaign to clean Philadelphia’s docks, slaughter houses and tan yards.

1740 Became the official printer for New Jersey.

1741 Advertised his first model of the Pennsylvania fireplace for sale, also known as the Franklin Stove. He declined on principle on taking a patent for the sole right to sell it.

1743 Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read had a daughter, Sarah who they call “Sally”.

1745 Benjamin’s father, Josiah Franklin, died at age 87.

Started electrical experiments after receiving an electric tube from Peter Collision.

1747 Helped organize a volunteer militia .

1748 Took David Hall as partner and Franklin retired from the daily operations of his printing business.

1749 Wrote and published pamphlet “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania”.

Helped organize the Academy of Philadelphia which later became the University of Pennsylvania .

1750 Franklin had first gout attack.

1751 Franklin, along with Dr. Thomas Bond, founded Pennsylvania Hospital , the nation’s first hospital, to care for the “sick-poor and insane of Philadelphia”.

1752 Abiah Folger, Franklin’s mother dies in Boston at age 84.

Conducted kite experiments by flying a kite in a thunderstorm proving that lightning is electrical. He published how to conduct the experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette .

Designed a flexible catheter for his brother who suffered from bladder stone.

1753 Appointed joint Deputy Postmaster General of the Colonies.

1754 To make a point about their own defense and colonial unity with the British against the French and Indians, Franklin printed his famous cartoon “Join, or Die” in the Pennsylvania Gazette. A decade later the cartoon would mean colonial unity against the British.

Attended the Albany Congress as representative of Pennsylvania proposing common defense for all colonies. The plan was rejected.

1757 Franklin was elected to go to England as a colonial agent.

1762 Awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from Oxford University.

Invented the glass armonica. Mozart and Beethoven later composed for it.

Mapped postal routes in the colonies.

1764 Franklin lost his seat in the Pennsylvania Assembly .

Returned to London as colonial agent.

1765 The Stamp Act was passed by the House of Commons.

Charted the Gulf Stream .

1766 At the expiry of his partnership with David Hall, Franklin sold his entire printing business to him.

1767 Daughter Sarah married Richard Bache, a Philadelphia merchant.

1769 The American Philosophical Society elected Franklin as its president. He was elected every year until his death.

1771 Began writing his autobiography.

1773 Hutchinson Affair .

1774 Deborah Read, his wife, died in Philadelphia.

1775 Elected as Pennsylvania delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

Elected as Postmaster General of the Colonies.

King George III declared the American colonies in rebellion.

1776 Franklin was appointed as part of the committee of 5 who drafted the Declaration of Independence .

Appointed to the French Court as one of the commissioners of the Continental Congress.

1778 Negotiated Treaty of Alliance with France . France declared war on Great Britain.

1783 John Adams , John Jay and Benjamin Franklin signed the Treaty of Paris which put an end to the war between the colonies and Great Britain.

1784 Franklin wrote the essay “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” proposing the innovative concept of Daylight Savings Time.

1785 Franklin described his invention of bifocal glasses .

Returned to the United States after 18 of years of service in Europe.

Elected President of the Pennsylvania Executive Council.

1786 Invented instrument for taking books down from a library shelf.

1787 Signed the United States Constitution.

1788 Franklin wrote his will leaving most of his estate to his daughter Sarah.

1789 Elected president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Submitted the first antislavery petition before the U.S. Congress.

1790 April 17 – Franklin died at age 84 . He is buried in Christ Church burial ground in Philadelphia . The cause of his death was pleurisy.