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Benjamin Franklin for
Kids | Benjamin Franklin
Biography |
Animated Hero Classics Cartoon
Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the
Founding Fathers who drafted the
Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States.
Born in
Boston in 1706, Benjamin Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the
U.S. Constitution, and he negotiated the
1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the
Revolutionary War. His scientific pursuits included investigations into electricity, mathematics and mapmaking. A printer and writer known for his wit and wisdom,
Franklin was a polymath who published
Poor Richard’s Almanack, invented bifocal glasses and organized the first successful
American lending library.
Benjamin Franklin was born on
January 17, 1706, in Boston in what was then known as the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. His 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 Ben at 12 to his brother
James at his print shop.
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, which became his home base for the rest of his life.
Franklin found work with another printer in Philadelphia and lodged at the home of
John Read, where he met and courted his landlord’s daughter
Deborah. 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 populace 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.)
Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 to find that
Deborah Read had married in the interim, only to be abandoned by her husband just months after the wedding
. In the next few years he held varied jobs such as bookkeeper, shopkeeper and currency cutter. He returned to a familiar trade in 1728 when he printed 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.
- published: 25 Mar 2016
- views: 1986