Could Benjamin Franklin be any cooler?

Cafe Society
1

I’m currently reading “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” by Walter Isaacson and I’m just blown away.

This being the first biography I’ve ever read, and my being skeptical and cynical of personal motives to begin with, I’m reading it with a wary eye towards personal bias on the part of the biographer, but on the whole it seems to be on the up and up.

I’m not very far into the book, but thus far everything seems to mesh perfectly with what I’ve previously learned in my Early American Literature classes and the like. I like that, unlike high school history classes, I get to see all sides (presumably) of the merely human man, including the father of an illegitimate child and borderline sexist (though presumably much less so than the majority of his contemporaries).

That being said, the quotes alone from letters Franklin wrote to friends and relatives, or excerpts from “Poor Richard’s Almanac” and letters he wrote under pseudonyms that he published in “The Pennsylvania Gazette,” or just from personal journal entries throughout his life has me convinced that Franklin was one of the greatest men to have ever lived.

While his metaphysical philosophies on religion seem not be his strong point, his musings and insights into everyday life is uncannily prescient and apply as well 200 years ago in a chiefly Calvinistic and Puritan society as they do today.

In an editorial for his newspaper, he wrote an article entitled “The Death of Infants,” which bears poignant significance as his own beloved son died of smallpox (for which he advocated inoculation) not long after it was published, in which he wrote “When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep.” I actually got choked up when I read that and had to put the book down.

I haven’t even gotten to the parts of his life in which he invented things we still use today (like bi-focals) or particpated in shaping the fledgling United States, but just through his mid-20’s he’s credited with inventing or collaborating on designing the ideas for things like a volunteer fire force, establishing a tax to pay for neighborhood constables, and the first subscription library; not to mention the first gossip and advice columns.

I’m in utter awe of the man and can only forlornly wish that he were still around to influence politics and society as he could only enrich it.

2

I heard an interview with the author the other day on NPR. I rushed to get the book afterwards. Isaacson was so interesting and informative.

I’m starting the book tonight. Sounds like I’m in for a real treat.

3

ben was a cool dude. i like most things about him. other things… not so good. as with all people you get a true understanding when you see the whole picture, not just the high points.

4

I believe he IS still influencing society today. As I understand it, he set aside some money, a fund which is invested and 50% of the earning go right back in, the other 50% funds scholarships for students. The fund keeps growing, (through good management), and it’s getting big. Each year they give out more scholarships.
I found a cite:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/10/28/franklin.bequests.ap/

Satch

5

It would have been cooler if he had reconciled with his son after the war.

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If you ever come to Philly, after you hit the Liberty Bell (so to speak), go a couple of blocks east to visit his house. It’s an incredibly cool experience – I always take visitors from out of town.

7

IMHO,

There are a number of good biographies of ol’ Ben - including, of course, his own.

(America’s Obi Wan Kenobi):smiley:

He is seen by many as the archtypical American. From humble origins, (though not poor), an unappreciated appentice - who chucked it and fled to Philadelphia (an illegal act in those days), and made himself not only wealthy but the leading citizen of Pennsylvania.

The stuff we take for granted - libraries, fire departments, public education, the post, scientific societies, he (and his friends) pushed into being in Philadelphia.

Alone, among our leading founders, Franklin rejected slavery and called for its abolition - and, as always, matched his words by forming one of the first abolition societies.

Among his inventions, include the improved cast iron stove - still called the Franklin stove - which he declined to patent, noting that the new design was for the benefit of all.

(Of course by then he was already wealthy and was moving - in his forties - to a “retirement” devoted to scientific inquiry.)

O’l Ben became famous, of course for his experiments in electricity, which drew him to England - where he became world famous as both a scientist and as an advocate for British imperialism.

(That his wife Debbie successfully maintained and improved his business affairs back in America during Franklin’s years long absences is one area that needs further research - but due to her few surviving correspondences - its an area that remains unclear. We do have her letter describing how she drove off a mob protesting the Stamp act taxes with a rifle.)

And yet amazingly, astoundingly, after all this, Franklin - an old man, - in a New York minute, changes everything and helps create the American republic.

He rejects the privileges of the British caste system (who you are and who you know) that allowed his son (but not Debbie’s) to become Royal Governor of New Jersey. He rejects Parliament’s right to govern the American colonies and alienates almost all of his friends in Britain.

He alienates most of his Tory friends at home - including his son - who helped hold that kite btw. No, they never reconciled, Franklin tried but could not persuade his son William to join the American side. Curiously enough, this estangement cements Franklin’s presitge among younger american rebels like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison who revere the old Roman republic and its stories of men who placed loyalty to the Republic above loyalty to one’s family.

This British-American Churchill becomes a leading advocate of full independence, with Adams, the editor of the July declaration.

And he still isn’t done!

He joins Adams as ministers to France, whose support in money, ships, and troops made America free.

(There is alot of dispute that Franklin did little of the scut work in France but he, through his prestige, represented America in the eyes of the royal government and the French people.)

And he still isn’t done!

After (with Adams and Pinckney) creating an anti-British coalition led by France - and after Yorktown, he constructs a separate peace treaty with Britain. Again, Adams and Pinckney sweat the details but Franklin gets the French to grudgingly approve the separate peace.

And he still isn’t done!

Although very old and frail, Franklin joins the Constitutional Convention that creates our current republic. His role is mostly prestige, but curiously enough for a man that attented many churches, supported all, and seemed to have little religion in his life, he urged that the government must never forget the role of “Providence” and the “Almighty” in public affairs.

Often misqouted (he, like many publishers, published witty sayings as if they were his own), my favorite is the possible saying of his when asked whether the Constitutional Convention would produce a monarchy or a republic.

“A republic, he said, if you can keep it.”

dos centavos

8

And then, most incredible of all, he was reincarnated as Billy Bob Thornton (at least according to Billy Bob Thornton).

9

HOw can you not like a man that once said:

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

10

puts bio on list of things to read

Am I the only one here to always think of Howard da Silva everytime someone mentions Ben Franklin?

twickster Philly is on my list of places to visit in the US. Having studied early American history on and off for years ( yes I do read more than books about old bones) Philly and Virginia are the TWO places in the US I HAVE to experience!

11

Well, he didn’t invent any 1720’s style “Death Rays” but he can be forgive for that because he was just a teenager for most of that decade.

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And a real Ladies Man, if you know what I mean. :smiley:

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franklin did own slaves… he did lean antislavery but as with jefferson didn’t free his slaves. that is one of the not so good parts of franklin.

14

It’s actually a complicated matter. Franklin owned at least four slaves (Peter, Jemima, George and King). He also had invested in the domestic slave trade and took ads in his papers for slave sales, runaway slaves, etc… An admirable thing, though, is that as an aging man he did something aging men seldom do and changed his mind.
Like most men of his times, he believed that Africans were of inferior stock and perhaps not fully human and unable to be educated like white people. In Europe in the 1760s he began changing his views; once was when his slave King ran away and, by the time he was found, had learned violin and some writing from his new mistress (who bought him from Franklin). Later he he met the first well educated black man he had ever seen, and later yet was floored then he visited a missionary school for black children (children of European slaves) and, late in life, rewrote his theories on blacks.
He ultimately transferred ownership of Jemima and George to his daughter and later urged her to free them, which she did not do. He eventually did free Peter. A reason he did not manumit them earlier, though its correctness can be debated, was that he felt to free them without preparing them for life (how to count money, read [the 18th century had much higher literacy rates than many realize, higher by far than the 19th century [when massive immigration and expansion to unsettled areas lowered the rates], find housing, etc.) would have been as unconscionable as keeping them in slavery. He did express great regret at his earlier business involvement in slavery.
It’s an oft cited misnomer that he founded the first abolition society, incidentally; he became HEAD of the first. Founded by Quakers at least a decade before he became involved, the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the forerunner of the Abolition Society.
A couple of cites: http://www.time.com/time/2003/franklin/bfslavery.html
http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_citizen_abolitionist.html

A man who never receives enough credit for his strong abolitionist views is George Washington. Though he grew old and grew (very very) as the beneficiary of slave labor, he grew to morally loathe it. His wife was, as is commonly known, one of the wealthiest heiresses of 18th century America and owned a large number of slaves in her own name, having inherited them from her father* and first husband (the slaves of the latter were actually the property of her children, but she was executrix and guardian of the estate). Washington owned a few slaves through purchase and inheritance at the time of his marriage, and aquired many more afterwards through the procreation of his slaves, the purchase of more slaves, and slaves given to him in payment of debt.
When he died, he directed that all slaves he owned outright be freed upon the death of his wife. (She was old and not very literate and a recluse and needed their labor to continue living in the style to which she was accustomed.) He requested in his will that she free her own slaves upon her death as well. He also bequeathed them tools and land to allow them to support themselves. While it seems too little too late to modern eyes, by 1799 standards this was “mighty white” of him.
Incidentally, Martha, possibly guilted by her grandchildren or possibly simply because she disagreed with George, did not free her slaves in her will but left them to her descendants (one of whom, of course, married Robert E. Lee, another slaveowner who had major moral objections to slavery).
*Gross trivia: one of Martha’s slaves was an infant half-sister who was given to her, along with the babe’s mother, at the time of her first marriage. The child later became the concubine of Martha’s son Jack, her own nephew.

Famous slaveowners who weren’t Southerners, incidentally, include Reverend Samuel Parris (of witch trial fame), Joseph Smith (he was given a slave by an early convert to Mormonism- though not an ardent abolitionist, he did free the slave), and Ulysses S. Grant.

PS- I agree- if Franklin didn’t look and more importantly sound like Howard DaSilva, he should have.

15

Mr Frankiln once visited my home village (in 1771) and stayed with Lord Hillsborough, the then ‘Secretary of State for the Colonies’. By all reports, they did not get on well.

Hillsborough - the Birthplace of the United States of America

Heh.

16

Walter Isaacson has given two different talks about Benjamin Franklin on Book TV, which airs on CSPAN 2. Check out out the tv schedule on http://booktv.org/schedule to look for air times. He is an excellent speaker.

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…all of this and nobody has mentioned he’s the only one still on US paper money who wasn’t president. When I was a kid, I wondered why.

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>He alienates most of his Tory friends at home - including his son - who helped hold that kite btw.

The whole kite thing is thought to have not happened. If you read his account carefully, he’s saying what would happen if you did it, not that he actually did it.

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Whoops…actually the $10 bill has Alexander Hamilton; although I don’t think he was on the Presidential track, he did become the first Secretary of the Treasury. He was killed in 1804 in a duel with Aaron Burr and is buried about a mile from where I am now, in Trinity Churchyard in lower Manhattan. Another fascinating guy.

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Definitely not on the Presidential track. He was born in the West Indies so he was not eligible for the Presidency.