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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705][Note 1] â€“ April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher.[1] Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general.[2]

"Ben Franklin" redirects here. For other uses, see Benjamin Franklin (disambiguation).

Benjamin Franklin

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Isaac Norris

January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705][Note 1]
Boston, Massachusetts Bay, British America

April 17, 1790(1790-04-17) (aged 84)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

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(m. 1730; died 1774)​

Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at age 23.[3] He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders".[4] After 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the policies of the British Parliament and the Crown.[5]


He pioneered and was the first president of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, which opened in 1751 and later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected its president in 1769. He was appointed deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753,[6] which enabled him to set up the first national communications network.


He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. Franklin became a hero in America when, as an agent in London for several colonies, he spearheaded the repeal of the unpopular Stamp Act by the British Parliament. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired as the first U.S. ambassador to France and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco–American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing French aid.


From 1785 to 1788, he served as President of Pennsylvania. At some points in his life, he owned slaves and ran "for sale" ads for slaves in his newspaper, but by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery, became an active abolitionist, and promoted the education and integration of African Americans into U.S. society.[7]


As a scientist, his studies of electricity made him a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics. He also charted and named the Gulf Stream current. His numerous important inventions include the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove.[8] He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department,[9] and the University of Pennsylvania.[10] Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity. Foundational in defining the American ethos, Franklin has been called "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become".[11]


His life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and his status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored for more than two centuries after his death on the $100 bill and in the names of warships, many towns and counties, educational institutions, and corporations, as well as in numerous cultural references and a portrait in the Oval Office. His more than 30,000 letters and documents have been collected in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.

Ancestry

Benjamin Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, soaper, and candlemaker. Josiah Franklin was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith and farmer, and his wife, Jane White. Benjamin's father and all four of his grandparents were born in England.[12]


Josiah Franklin had a total of seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683; they had three children before emigration and four after. Following her death, Josiah married Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689, in the Old South Meeting House by Reverend Samuel Willard, and had ten children with her. Benjamin, their eighth child, was Josiah Franklin's fifteenth child overall, and his tenth and final son.


Benjamin Franklin's mother, Abiah, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrell Folger, a former indentured servant. Mary Folger came from a Puritan family that was among the first Pilgrims to flee to Massachusetts for religious freedom, sailing for Boston in 1635 after King Charles I of England had begun persecuting Puritans. Her father Peter was "the sort of rebel destined to transform colonial America."[13] As clerk of the court, he was arrested on February 10, 1676, and jailed on February 19 for his inability to pay bail. He spent over a year and a half in jail.[14]

(1789)

An Address to the Public

(1789)

A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks

Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the Slave Trade (1790)

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Designations

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

City

Government & Politics, Government & Politics 18th Century, Invention, Science & Medicine, Professions & Vocations, Publishing & Journalism, Writers

June 30, 1990[287]

Printer, author, inventor, diplomat, philanthropist, statesman, and scientist. The eighteenth century's most illustrious Pennsylvanian built a house in Franklin Court starting in 1763, and here he lived the last five years of his life.

Archived August 14, 2017, at the Wayback Machine experiments and Franklin's electrical writings from Wright Center for Science Education

Benjamin Franklin and Electrostatics

Benjamin Franklin Papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

 â€“ talk by medical historian, Dr. Jim Leavesley celebrating the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth on Okham's Razor ABC Radio National â€“ December 2006

Franklin's impact on medicine

of Benjamin Franklin's string quartet

Video with sheet music