Benjamin Franklin
1706–1790 · Printer, scientist, inventor and diplomat; signer of the Declaration and the Constitution.
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, the fifteenth of seventeen children of a candle and soap maker. He left school at ten, was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, and at seventeen ran away to Philadelphia, where he built a successful printing business. His Poor Richard's Almanack was famous for its sayings. He helped found a lending library, a fire company, a hospital and the academy that became the University of Pennsylvania. His experiments showed that lightning is electricity, and he invented the lightning rod, bifocal glasses and an efficient stove, refusing to patent them. He spent many years in London as an agent for the colonies, then helped edit the Declaration of Independence. As ambassador to France he won the alliance that helped win the Revolution, and he helped negotiate the peace. At eighty-one he was the oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention. Franklin owned enslaved servants for part of his life, but in old age he became president of an antislavery society. His Autobiography is a classic.
Benjamin Franklin is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Raised in a Puritan family; as a young man he adopted deism, and in his autobiography he called himself a deist while still considering himself a Christian. Source: Wikipedia
See also: Signers of the Declaration · Robert Morris · Benjamin Rush · James Wilson · John Adams · Thomas Jefferson · Roger Sherman
Key dates
- 1706 Born in Boston
- 1732 First Poor Richard's Almanack
- 1752 Kite experiment on lightning
- 1778 Wins the French alliance
- 1787 Delegate to the Constitutional Convention
- 1790 Dies in Philadelphia
Fun facts
- As a boy growing up beside the Charles River in Boston, he remembered being 'generally the leader among the boys'. (Source: Benjamin Franklin (Wikipedia))
- On 27 August 1783, in Paris, he watched the world's first hydrogen balloon flight. (Source: Benjamin Franklin (Wikipedia))
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- He was the only person to sign all three of the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris with Britain, and the Constitution. (Source: Benjamin Franklin (Wikipedia))
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In their words
“early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”
Read about them
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Grades K–2
- I am Benjamin Franklin by Brad Meltzer (2020; ISBN 9780525555919)
Bookshop.org · Amazon
Grades 3–5
- What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz (Putnam Juvenile, 1996; ISBN 9780698113725)
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Grades 6–8
- Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanack · In the library
- The Founding Documents · In the library
Grades 9–12
- Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2004; ISBN 9780743258074)
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More lives
John Adams · Samuel Adams · Josiah Bartlett · Carter Braxton · Edmund Burke · Charles Carroll of Carrollton