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Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston January 1706. He was the15th child, and tenth son, of Josiah Franklin, a soap and candle maker who had emigrated from England to America in 1683 at the age of 25 with his wife, Anne and their three children. The Franklins came from a long line of religiously devout ancestors, After Anne's death, Josiah married Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, a Puritan, who was known for his writings defending Puritans and Baptists.
Josiah fathered a total of 17 children, seven with Anne and ten children with Abiah. Benjamin was Josiah's fifteenth child, and tenth son. He learned to read so early in life he did not remember not being able to read. He read every book he could acquire and had a questioning mind from early childhood. Because of his love for reading, Josiah apprenticed young Benjamin to his older brother, James, who was a printer.
As a printer he was able to develop his talents as an able author, publisher, inventor, scientist, public servant and diplomat and he became perhaps America's most indispensable asset during its forming years. Franklin seemed to question almost everything - from customs, to electricity, to methods of heating the house, to religion, to political, and social issues of his time. In 1722, as a 16-year-old he wrote a response to a letter that accused women of being "guilty of pride and idleness" that was published in the New England Courant: "if you go among the women you will learn that they have always more work upon their hands than they are able to do; and that a Woman's work is never done."[1]
In 1728, at the age of twenty-two Benjamin wrote "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion in Two Parts"[2] which seems to outline his somewhat independent belief in God as he was developing his writing skills.
In 1735 he introduced his Poor Richard's Almanac and was writing numerous articles and commentary for the Pennsylvania Gazette. By 1747 Franklin had collected and printed hundreds of proverbs or wise sayings in annual editions of his Almanac.
In 1744 he introduced and began advertising his "New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire-places" which today is known as the Franklin stove.[3] He refused to patent his new stove to make it more readily accessible and less costly to the American public. His invention addressed an energy problem not unlike that of the 21st Century. His stove, he believed:
"Would save the people time, money and work since in Pennsylvania fires are needed seven months of the year" and "wood, our common fuel, which within these 100 years might be had at every man's door, must now be fetched near 100 miles in some towns." He also noted in his detailed description of his new stove that "so much of the Comfort and Conveniency of our Lives, for so great a Part of the Year, depends on the Article of Fire; since Fuel is become so expensive, and (as the Country is more clear'd and settled) will of course grow scarcer and dearer; any new Proposal for Saving the Wood, and for lessening the Charge and augmenting the Benefit of Fire, by some particular Method of Making and Managing it, may at least be thought worth Consideration."
In effect, by inventing the stove Benjamin Franklin was an 18th Century environmentalist.
In 1749 Franklin wrote a newspaper article entitled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania"[4] in which he "regretted" the absence of a public academy for the youth of the colony and made detailed recommendations about what children should be taught in public schools and how it should be taught. Besides the teaching of grammar, writing, reading, arithmetic, history, health, languages, and even physical fitness, he also advocated: "the necessity of a public religion ' because of "its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private Persons; the mischiefs of superstition, etc. and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others ancient or modern."
In the early 1750s, Franklin became engrossed in his experiments, especially electricity, and corresponded often with Peter Collinson[5] in London about them. By the mid-1750s Franklin was writing about public problems that developed when the French and Indian war began. That war started in the Ohio Territory and soon became the Seven Years war, eventually involving most of the nations in Europe and trade in Asia and Africa.
To address problems in both government and trade that developed during the war, In 1754 Franklin introduced the Albany Plan of Union[6] that introduced government concepts that eventually would be adopted in the Declaration of Independence, the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. However, the Albany Plan, which was considered and approved by delegates from eleven of the 13 colonies, also required the cooperation and approval of the King of England to allow the people in the colonies to elect their own national representatives and have the same rights as those in England. This approval was never granted.
In 1757 the Pennsylvania Assembly chose Franklin to be its diplomat in London and he was there until 1762, when he returned to Philadelphia. Two years later, in 1764 the Pennsylvania Assembly again sent him to London and he was able to present the concerns of the Americans colonists to the Parliament during the years leading up to the revolution. In fact, his efforts to, in effect, lobby for the colonists during enactment of the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts and the hated Tea act of 1773 probably postponed the start of the American Revolution and his efforts certainly led to the quick repeal of the most oppressive of Parliament's legislation during the eleven years he lived in London the second time he was Pennsylvania's diplomat in London.
While in England during those years he also researched the Franklin family genealogy and in 1771, at the age of sixty-five he wrote from London the following in his Autobiography:[7]
"This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, (1516-1558)[8] when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against popery. (Catholic Church) They had got an English Bible and to conceal and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the frame of a joint stool. When my great-great grandfather read it to his family, he turned up the joint stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before."
When he returned to Philadelphia on May 5, 1775 the Revolution had really already begun. He was promptly elected to the Continental Congress and was selected along with Thomas Jefferson, from Virginia, John Adams, from Massachusetts, Roger Sherman, from Connecticut and Roger Livingston, from New York to write the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776.
Eleven years later, in 1787, at the age of 81, he was also was a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Constitutional Convention, one of only five men who were delegates to both the Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was approved and to the Constitutional Convention when it was approved. Four Pennsylvania signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, James Wilson and George Clymer and one Delaware delegate, George Read, signed both documents.
After about five weeks of bickering among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention over whether the House of Representatives should have one vote for each state, or votes based on the population of each state, Franklin rose and stated:
"I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probably that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interest; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a bye word down to a future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest."[9]
He then proposed that "henceforth prayer imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business." Prayers have opened each day the U.S. Congress has met since then.
[1] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklinframedvolumes.jsp - Silence Dogood No. 5 -
[2] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.jsp - Vol 1-Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion
[3] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.jsp - Vol 2- Pennsylvanian fIreplaces-Franklin Stove
[4] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.jsp - Vol 3
[5] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.jsp - Vol. 4, 5, 6- Peter Collinson
[6] http://www.franklkinlalers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.js;p - Vol. 5 - The Albany Plan of Union
[7] http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedvolumes.jsp - Autobiography - Part 1 -
[8] http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=mary1 - Qween Mary I-persecution of Protestants England
[9] http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin.htm - Benjamin Franklin - 1787
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Mary Mostert has written articles on political and social issues for more than 60 years, including a weekly newspaper column for Gannett Newspapers. She has written four books, including books on the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
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