Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) was an American printer, ambassador, inventor, and author. He was the author of Poor Richard's Almanack, which was published from 1732 to 1757.
- Benjamin Franklin: HistoryOne of the leading figures of early American history, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor and diplomat.
- Benjamin Franklin: Library of AmericaLibrary of American entry for Benjamin Franklin.
- Poor Richard's Almanack - Benjamin Franklin (Complete Audiobook)his is a reading of a brief biographical sketch of Franklin's life, followed by a collection (published in 1899) of 670 aphorisms, apothegms, or proverbs - short, pithy, instructive sayings - that were scattered throughout the pages of his Poor Richard's Almanack over its 25 years of once-a-year publication (1732-1758).
Research & Reference
- Benjamin Franklin: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Benjamin Franklin. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Benjamin Franklin: In His Own WordsFor most people, Franklin's fame as a writer and printer rests on Poor Richard's Almanack which is commonly recognized for the wit and wisdom spun by Franklin under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. But Benjamin Franklin's accomplishments were far greater. He was considered the most accomplished printer in Colonial America. His 1744 edition of Cicero's Cato Major . . . is the finest example of early American printing. Not content with a successful career as a writer/printer, Franklin promoted a host of Philadelphia educational and benevolent societies including the founding of the city's first lending library.
- Franklin, Benjamin: American National BiographyAmerican National Biography of Benjamin Franklin.
- The Papers of Benjamin Franklin: National ArchivesA comprehensive edition of the papers of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), one of the founders of the United States of America. Franklin had many careers during the course of his life including service as a diplomat, printer, writer, inventor, scientist, lawmaker, and postmaster. At the age of 23, Franklin became a newspaper editor and printer, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette and later creating and publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack under the pseudonym “Richard Saunders.” He was part of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence and was a delegate at the U.S. Constitution. Franklin also served as the first ambassador to France and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1783) with England. He was a founder of the University of Pennsylvania and late in life petitioned Congress on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society to end slavery.
Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard's Almanac: Kahn Academy
In this video, Sal and Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson discuss Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Created by Aspen Institute.
Author's Works & Perspectives
Writings
A collection of many pieces by Franklin that reflect the life and times of Colonial and Revolutionary America.
Franklin on Franklin
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought.
Benjamin Franklin's Intellectual World
This volume attempts to throw fresh light on two areas of Benjamin Franklin's intellectual world, namely: his self-fashioning and his political thought. It is an odd thing that for all of Franklin's voluminous writings--a fantastically well-documented correspondence over many years, scientific treatises that made his name amongst the brightest minds of Europe, newspaper articles, satires, and of course his signature on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution--and yet scholars debate how to get at his political thought, indeed, if he had any political philosophy at all. It could be argued, that he is perhaps the American Founder most closely associated with the Enlightenment. Similarly, for a man who left so much evidence about his life--as a printer, bookseller, postmaster, inventor, diplomat, politician, scientist, among other professions--one who wrote an autobiography that has become a piece of American national literature and, indeed, a contribution to world culture; the question of who Ben Franklin continues to engage scholars and those who read about his life. His identity seems so stable that we associate it with certain virtues that apply to the way we live our lives, time management, for example. The image of the stable figure of Franklin is applied to create a sense of trust in everything from financial institutions to plumbers. His constant drive to improve and fashion himself reveal, however, a man whose identity was not static and fixed, but was focused on growth, on bettering his understanding of himself and the world he lived in and attempted to influence and improve.
Benjamin Franklin
In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character. Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative that follows Franklin's life from Boston to Philadelphia to London and Paris and back, Walter Isaacson chronicles the adventures of the runaway apprentice who became, over the course of his eighty-four-year life, America's best writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, and business strategist, as well as one of its most practical and ingenious political leaders. He explores the wit behind Poor Richard's Almanac and the wisdom behind the Declaration of Independence, the new nation's alliance with France, the treaty that ended the Revolution, and the compromises that created a near-perfect Constitution. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, showing how he helped to forge the American national identity and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.
Benjamin Franklin: American Satirist
The 18th century was also the golden age of satire, which provided an excellent way to question authority and challenge received wisdom. As you will learn in this lecture, Franklin was among peers with Swift, Defoe, and Voltaire, and he used personas like Silence Dogood to offer blistering critiques of society.
Source: Kanopy