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Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin's mother was Asian Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah Franklin was the father of 17 children. Benjamins father wanted him to enter into the clergy. However, Josiah could only afford to send Benjamin to school for one year and clergymen needed years of schooling.
But, as young boy Benjamin loved to read he had him apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer. After helping James compose pamphlets and set type which was demanding work. At the age 12 Benjamin began selling their products in the streets. When Benjamin was 15 his brother started The New England Courant the first "newspaper" in Boston. The people aboard only readied most of the newspaper at that time. James's paper carried articles, opinion pieces written by James's friends, advertisements, and news of ship schedules.
Benjamin wanted to write for the paper too, but he knew that James would never let him. So Ben began writing letters at night and signing them with the name of a fictional widow, Silence Dogood. Dogood was filled with advice and very critical of the world around her, particularly concerning the issue of how women were treated. Benjamin would sneak the letters under the print shop door at night so no one knew who was writing the pieces. They were a smash hit, and everyone wanted to know who was the real "Silence Dogood. " After 16 letters, Benjamin confessed that he had been writing the letters. While James's friends thought Benjamin was quite precocious and funny, James discipline his brother and was very jealous of the intention paid to him.
James was thrown in jail for his views, and Benjamin was left to run the paper for several issues. After he was release from jail, James was not grateful to Benjamin for keeping the paper's going. Instead he kept harassing his younger brother. Benjamin could not take it and decided to left in 1723. Benjamin Franklin runs to Philadelphia by boat even though he was born in New York. Franklin meet a lady named Deborah Read who befriended him.
Franklin found work as an apprentice printer. He did so well that the governor of Pennsylvania promised to set him up in business for himself if young Franklin would just go to London to buy fonts and printing equipment. Franklin did go to London, but the governor reneged on his promise and Benjamin was forced to spend several months in England doing print work. Benjamin had been living with the Read family before he left for London. Deborah Read, the very same girl who had seen young Benjamin arrive in Philadelphia, started talking marriage, with the young printer. But Ben did not think he was ready.
While he was gone, she married another man. Franklin returns back to Philadelphia, he helped run a shop, but soon went back to being a printer's helper. Franklin was a better printer than the man he was working for, so he borrowed some money and set himself up in the printing business. Franklin seemed to work all the time, and the citizens of Philadelphia began to notice the diligent young businessman. Soon he began getting the contract to do government jobs and started thriving in business. In 1728, Benjamin fathered a child named William.
The mother of William is not known. However, in 1730 Benjamin married his childhood sweetheart, Deborah Read. Deborah's husband had run off, and now she was able to marry. In 1729, Benjamin Franklin bought a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Franklin not only printed the paper, but also often contributed pieces to the paper under aliases. His newspaper soon became the most successful in the colonies. This newspaper, among other firsts, would print the first political cartoon, authored by Franklin himself. During the 1720 s and 1730 s, Franklin began devoted himself to the good of the public. He organized the Junto, a young workingman's group dedicated to self- and-civic improvement. He joined the Masons.
He was a very busy man socially. In 1733 he started publishing Poor Richard's Almanac. Almanacs of the era were printed annually, and contained things like weather reports, recipes, predictions and homilies. Franklin published his almanac under the guise of a man named Richard Saunders, a poor man who needed money to take care of his carping wife.
What distinguished Franklin's almanac were his witty saying and lively writing. He helped launch projects to pave, clean and light Philadelphia's streets. He started campaign for environmental clean up. Among the chief accomplishments of Franklin in this time was helping to launch the Library Company in 1731. During this time books were scarce and expensive. Franklin recognized that by pooling together resources, members could afford to buy books from England.
He helped establish the nations first subscription library. In 1743, he helped to launch the American Philosophical Society, the first learned society in America. Recognizing that the city needed better help in treating the sick, Franklin brought together a group who formed the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751. In 1736, he organized Philadelphia's Union Fire Company, the first in the city.
Those who suffered fire damage to their homes often suffered irreversible economic loss. So, in 1752, Franklin helped to found the Philadelphia Contribution for Insurance Against Loss by Fire. Those with insurance policies were not wiped out financially. Politics became more of an active interest for Franklin in the 1750 s.
In 1757, he went to England to represent Pennsylvania in its fight with the descendants of the Penn family over who should represent the Colony. He remained in England to 1775, as a Colonial representative not only of Pennsylvania, but of Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts as well. Early in his time abroad, Franklin considered himself a loyal Englishman. England had many of the facilities that America lacked. The country also had fine thinkers, theater things in short supply in America.
He kept asking Deborah to come visit him in England. He had thoughts of staying there permanently, but she was afraid of traveling by ship. In 1765, Franklin was caught by surprise by America's overwhelming opposition to the Stamp Act. His testimony before Parliament helped persuade the members to repeal the law.
He started wondering if America should break free of England. Franklin, though he had many friends in England, and was growing sick of the corruption he saw all around him in politics and royal circles. Franklin, who had proposed a plan for united colonies in 1754, now would earnestly start working toward that goal. Franklin's big break with England occurred in the "Hutchinson Affair. " Thomas Hutchinson was an English-appointed governor of Massachusetts. Although he pretended to take the side of the people of Massachusetts in their complaints against England, he was actually still working for the King. Franklin got a hold of some letters in which Hutchinson called for " an abridgment of what are called English Liberties" in America.
He sent the letters to America where much of the population was outraged. After leaking the letters Franklin was called to Whitehall, the English Foreign Ministry, where he was condemned in public. Franklin came home, when he started working actively for Independence. He naturally thought his son William, now the Royal governor of New Jersey, would agree with his views. William did not. William remained a Loyal Englishman.
This caused a gap between father and son, which was never healed. Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and worked on a committee of five that helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. Though much of the writing was Thomas Jefferson's, much of the contribution is Franklin's. In 1776 Franklin signed the Declaration, and afterward sailed to France as an ambassador. Franklin loved France and the ladies loved him. His wife died several years ago and he was now known as a notorious flirt.
The government of France signed a Treaty of Alliance with the Americans in 1778. Franklin signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783, after the Americans had won the Revolution. Now a man in his late seventies, Franklin returned to America. He became President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania.
He served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and signed the Constitution. Franklin died on April 17, 1790 at the age of 84.
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Research essay sample on Loyal Englishman Silence Dogood Franklin
