Benjamin Franklin
By Joseph Duplessis Siffred 1778
Birth	17 January 1706 Boston
Deaths	17 April 1790 (84 years) Philadelphia
Occupation (s)	Printer , diplomat , scientist, scholar.
Signature

Benjamin Franklin ( 17 January 1706 in Boston - 17 April 1790 in Philadelphia ) is one of the most illustrious figures in American history, both writer , physicist and diplomat.

First printer in Philadelphia, he became known by the success of his almanacs. Committed to freedom, human lights complete Freemason of the British tradition, the precursor of " encyclopedists "and inventor, demonstrates the electrical nature of lightning. Director, philanthropist and elected to Philadelphia, he represented the settlers of Pennsylvania in London. Appointed Postmaster of the colonies, it is responsible to protest against British taxes on behalf of the settlers. Co-author and signatory of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776 , is one of the " founding fathers of the United States , he became the first ambassador in France.

The rise in Boston

The birthing of Benjamin Franklin in Boston

Benjamin Franklin was born on 17 January 1706 at the age of eight, he can continue his studies in this institution, despite its good results, because of low family income.

It is then sent up to the age of ten years in a school writing and arithmetic , George Brownell's school Franais, where he acquires a beautiful handwriting, but does not shine in arithmetic.

His father recalls at the age of ten years to work in his shop as craftsman in candles and soaps. This activity is far from meeting the young Franklin, his father allows him to discover so many trades: bricklayer , cooper , boilermaker , enabling him to acquire multiple skills that will prove useful in scientific work.

What interested especially the young Benjamin Franklin was the books, so much so that in his autobiography , he recounts that he "did not recall having ever been unable to read." This prompts his father in 1718, sending Benjamin to work for his half-brother James, printer in Boston , where he really began to write and read. Meetings with clients of the printing press opened the doors of many libraries.

In 1724, James began publishing a newspaper, the New England Courant. Under the pseudonym Silence Dogood Dame (literally, "Faitdubien Silence"), Benjamin wrote several articles, it slides under the door of the shop of his half-brother every night. Which ignores so who is the author of these articles.

His texts immediately know a great public success. When James was imprisoned for criticizing the authorities to recall the freedom of expression of the press, Benjamin published a quote from a British newspaper:

" The printer of Philadelphia

Poor Richard Almanack 1739

Proverbs of Poor Richard Almanack

Benjamin Franklin in his costume freemason

Without any money, then he moved to Philadelphia , where he found an apprenticeship as a printer.

By chance he meets quickly the governor of Pennsylvania , Sir William Keith , who invited him to found his own printing press. Keith wrote a letter of recommendation to convince the father of Benjamin Franklin to help her financially. Benjamin's return to Boston is a complete failure. The father refuses to advance financial and Benjamin can not be reconciled with his half-brother. The governor then promised him letters of credit to enable him to buy the printing equipment in England .

Benjamin Franklin's hand in England , but the governor did not send him letters of credit. The governor was known for his promises, he had a habit of never taking, Franklin learned that too late. Always driven by the idea of creating his own printing, Benjamin Franklin was working eighteen months in London as a printer at Samuel Palmer, where he accumulated a small savings. Several meetings allow him to return to America as a trader associated with an Englishman.

Back in Philadelphia, he quickly resumed his activity as a printer and handles printing in which he was apprenticed. A dispute about his salary finally decides to start his own printing press. Soon, a friend lent him the money that was lacking to bring the printing equipment from England. Meanwhile, during a period of three months he still works for his former boss and prints banknotes for the State of New Jersey.

In 1729 , he purchased the printing and the newspaper of a competitor, the Pennsylvania Gazette. This allows it to publish regular columns and editorials that are soon the most-read of colonial America.

To develop the economy of Philadelphia defends the idea to also print paper currency of the State of Pennsylvania, and at the same time the market gets. This very lucrative contract allows him to repay his debts. At the same time, he opened a shop selling paper , the scrolls and other miscellaneous items.

On 30 January 1730 , he was elected government official printer of Pennsylvania.

That same year he married Deborah Read , the daughter of the family who had sheltered him in Philadelphia sometime after leaving Boston. With this marriage, it strengthens its position in society.

Meanwhile, he started several social and cultural activities. He founded the "Junto," discussion group which meets weekly to discuss philosophical topics. He had the idea of sharing the books of all members to create a library.

This gives him the idea of founding the first public library in 1731. The library was open to all against a modest annual subscription. In 1742, the library has added new members and especially of books and took the name "Company of Philadelphia Library." At that time, the library had about 8000 books, instruments and tools of physics, a collection of natural history objects, and collections of art and some land around Philadelphia. The model library is copied to the delight of Benjamin Franklin in the entire state of Pennsylvania and other colonies. The idea of making books accessible to as many rejoiced Benjamin Franklin, who saw a way to convey the ideals of freedom.

From 1732, he published an almanac under the pseudonym Richard Saunders (a British astrologer). It will continue to publish annually for twenty-five years, under the title The Almanac of Bonhomme Richard (Poor Richard's Almanack). He also learned several foreign languages including the French , the German , the Spanish and Italian. This almanac was a book of maxims and text praising the progress of industry and providing economic advice. The first edition has sold 10,000 copies.

On 24 June 1734 , Benjamin Franklin is elevated to "Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania."

The politician

His activities as a printer and writer Benjamin Franklin used to enter politics.

• 1736 : Appointed secretary of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, he was reelected every year before becoming a representative of the City of Philadelphia.
• 1737 : he won the title of Postmaster. This important feature facilitates the dissemination of his journals and his ideas, and also enables it to be linked with other colonies.
• 1738 : he established the first American Fire Company in Philadelphia. Several competing companies were founded while in Philadelphia, but he managed to merge them. Philadelphia has no great fire during this period. With the same idea, it also creates an insurance against fire.
• 1743 : he founded the American Philosophical Society (American Philosophical Society).
• 1744 : while the Assembly was unable to establish a plan to defend the colony from Indian incursions (when the Indians were allies of the French), he managed to create a voluntary association for the defense. The number of volunteers rose rapidly to 10 000.
• 1747 : He is elected by the city of Philadelphia, member of the General Assembly of the province (and often battled against owners who demanded even more benefits while denying the tax).
• 1748 : He retired from professional life.
• 1749 : he created with his first college friends Academy of Philadelphia today University of Pennsylvania. It is financially supported in this by the Penn family, descendants of the founder of the city of Philadelphia, William Penn. He immediately becomes the president.
  

  

  The Join, or Die , drawing advocating the Union of colonies attributed to Benjamin Franklin
• 1751 : he was elected member of the Pennsylvania Assembly.
• 1752 (February): it creates and opens the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.
• On 10 August 1753 , he was elected Deputy Postmaster General of North America. This allows him to have contact with all 13 colonies.
• 1754 : it attempts to unify the colonies to defend themselves more effectively against the French, as a prelude to the Seven Years War between the Great Britain and France in particular for the control of the valley of the Ohio.
• 1756 : he reformed the police of Philadelphia, putting in place new regulations to better protect citizens while preserving their privacy. It sets up a public lighting in the streets of Philadelphia. He then fifty years.
• 1757 : Meeting in Philadelphia sent him to London to resolve issues between the landowners (the Penn family) and the government.
• 1761 : travels in Belgium and Holland.
• 1762 : After a stopover in Madeira , it is back in Pennsylvania on November ^1.
• 1763 : A grand tour of inspection of post offices is held between June and November 1763 in New Jersey , New York and New England.
• On ¹ October 1764 , he lost his seat in the Assembly of Pennsylvania and is accused by his opponents of being favorable to the royal government, because he coveted the post of governor.
  He was appointed agent of the colonies in London (or ambassador is not only Pennsylvania, but also from Massachusetts , of New Jersey and Georgia. He is back in England on December 9, where it docked at the ' Isle of Wight. It is eleven years in this position.
• 1765 : calling for a repeal of the Stamp Act.
• 1767 : During a trip to Paris between August and October, it is presented to Louis XV.
• 1769 : he was elected president of the American Philosophical Society. New trip in France.
• On 3 December 1776 , he landed at Auray in the port of Saint-Goustan to call the French to support Americans in their War of Independence .

The ambassador, founding father of the United States

Benjamin Franklin received by Louis XVI in March 1778. (Engraving German 1784)

Declaration of Independence

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

He returned to Britain where he was representing colonial and returned to Philadelphia, where he ranks among the supporters of independence, unlike his son, a state governor. In 1776, he chaired the "Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia." He is a member of the Committee of Five , including Thomas Jefferson commissioned by the Second Continental Congress drafting the text of the Declaration of Independence. This is a signatory to the side of representatives of the Thirteen Colonies.

Ambassador to Europe

In October 1776 , to transmit the emergency call of a new nation should fight against the second world military power, Franklin agreed to join the three American envoys in France , accompanied by Silas Deane and Arthur Lee.

Accompanied by his two grandchildren, he crossed the Atlantic despite the British naval vessels. Once in France, he began a diplomatic career of the most successful. Lionized by the scientific and literary Paris, he is seen as the incarnation of humanistic values of the Enlightenment. At a meeting of the French Academy , Franklin and Voltaire became friends. Turgot also expresses admiration for the diplomat.

At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Benjamin Franklin realizes that despite the desire of the French to get revenge on Britain, and sympathy that the American cause raises the kingdom is reluctant to move until the situation American rebels are still vulnerable. Franklin is therefore developing a device to achieve its diplomatic purposes: it increases the contacts, bypassing the British diplomacy develops relations with French politicians. In February 1778 , after the news of the British defeat of Saratoga , the three U.S. representatives are able to sign an agreement with France. Deane and Lee fall in the U.S., leaving Franklin alone ambassador to Versailles. After another British defeat at the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia , he sketches the first peace negotiations with representatives of British power. During the summer of 1782, when John Adams and John Jay are heading to Paris, Franklin wrote an outline of the treaty shall prevail: it calls for total independence, access to fishing grounds of the new territories, the evacuation by British forces from occupied areas and the establishment of a western border on the banks of the Mississippi.

Signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783)

Treaty of Paris, 1783

In 1783, Adams, Jay and Benjamin Franklin, then aged over seventy years, to sign the United States a peace treaty which guarantees the independence . This treaty ended the Revolutionary War.

Signing of the U.S. Constitution

Back in the U.S., his popularity is at its peak: he was elected the new President of the State of Pennsylvania for three years. He also participated in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution .

It thus becomes the only "founding father of America" (founding father) to sign all three founding documents of the United States: the Declaration of Independence , the Treaty of Paris and the U.S. Constitution.

Advocate of the union with the Canadian colonies

Benjamin Franklin comes to Montreal in 1776 as commissioner of the U.S. Congress to seek unity among the settlers and Quebecers. A French version of the Constitution, written by Thomas Jefferson , provides an article to that effect. Franklin held at the McGill University of Montreal , a conference to invite the New France to join the Union ^{The inventor and scientist}

Main article: Experience of Franklin's kite.

Franklin's scientific experiments

In addition to his printer, politician and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin led a large number of scientists who participated in activities to its reputation in Europe.

It is particularly famous for his work in the field of electricity , including his experiences on the lightning. In 1750 , he drafted the protocol of a famous experiment with lightning. To prove his opponents in the Royal Society that lightning was electrical in nature, he proposed to fly during a thunderstorm a kite attached to a key metal. Written as a semi-mocking, experience presents obvious risks to be fatal to the experimenter , yet she knows a great interest in Europe and similar experiments are conducted, particularly by French Thomas Francis Dalibard and Benjamin Franklin himself. These studies lead to the invention of the lightning rod , the first copies are installed on his house on Independence Hall and the Academy of Philadelphia. Research on the nature of electricity, we must include terms as common as "battery", "positive", "negative", "dependent", etc..

He also placed himself lightning rods, for example, in 1782, Benjamin Franklin has installed a lightning rod on the steeple of the Church of St. Clement (Arpajon) , France.

The Royal Society awarded him the Copley Medal in 1754.

There is also a pioneer researcher in the field of meteorology ( Franklin bells ) and even one of the first men to climb into a balloon. Indeed, when the first balloon flight (1783), his house is close to the ground off. He made a description in private correspondence, and even met the Marquis and a brother of Arlandes Montgolfier. The analysis of the flight by hot air balloon and gas on this occasion he made a fascinating insight.

In 1762 , he invented the glass harmonica , instrument with keyboard made of glass rubbed.

It is also the inventor of bifocal glasses and the stove burning wood controlled, which still bears his name and is in widespread use in the country. As Thomas Edison is the concreteness and practice of philosophy, science and technology of interest. In 1770 , he was the first to map the ocean current of the Gulf Stream along the eastern seaboard of the United States .

Franklin puts all his inventions in the public domain and clearly indicates in his writings that it was deliberate. "... as we enjoy the advantages we bring the inventions of others, we should be happy to have the opportunity to serve others through our own inventions, and we should do this for free and with generosity. "

Franklin is also the first to propose an experiment to calculate the size of a molecule. He pours a teaspoon of oil on the surface of the pond Clap Ham , near London and see that oil stain spread over half an acre (approximately 2,000 m) . He noted that the ripples caused by wind does not propagate on the oil. At first, he did not grasp the magnitude of this simple experiment, but Lord Rayleigh realizes hundred years later by dividing the volume of oil spreading on the surface we found a value of about of nanometer.

His last years

Text for the abolition of slavery.

His legacy

He died in Philadelphia on 17 April 1790 at the age of eighty-four. At the announcement of his death, the French National Assembly decreed three days of national mourning .

In his first will, Benjamin Franklin wanted to donate part of his fortune (2000 pounds ) to allow completion of work to make it navigable Skuylkil. However, he revised his will, because this sum appeared to be well enough to do the work.

Finally, he sold part of his fortune to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia (1000 pounds each). This money should be lent to artisans to allow their installation. He counted on interest (5%) to increase the original amount. According to his calculations, after a hundred years, the sum would amount to 131,000 pounds.

He then wishes in his will a portion of this amount (100,000 pounds) is used to build hospitals, infrastructure and fortifications, schools ... The other party must be paid again. After 200 years the amount to amount to 4,061,000 will be available to the state government.

For Philadelphia, it provides the same mechanism, after a hundred years the money was used to build an aqueduct to bring water drinking in town and go as he wished initially Skuylkil waterway.

In addition, he bequeathed to George Washington 's wild apple stick with which he was wont to walk.

His books are in turn sold to various institutions and his grandchildren son.

His claims are given at the hospital in Pennsylvania, hoping that people who owed him money will feel they do a good deed by paying their debt to the hospital.

He wanted a burial ceremony with the "least possible expense and ceremony."

Tributes

Statue of Benjamin Franklin in Paris.

100 bill.

Statue of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania

As a " founding father "of the country, his image has appeared on several stamps in current use , including the five hundred brown , one of the first stamps of the United States.

Her image also appears on the ticket of one hundred dollars.

Countless streets, bridges, schools and monuments bear his name:

• Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia
• Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia
• Franklin Square in Philadelphia
• Benjamin Franklin Institute in Philadelphia
• Rue Benjamin Franklin in Paris in the ^16th arrondissement
• USS Benjamin Franklin, warships of the U.S. Navy.

In 2006, in Philadelphia, many events have been organized to celebrate ^the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin. In France, an exhibition dedicated to him at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.

Epitaph

Benjamin Franklin wrote his epitaph (Mock Epitaph) at the age of twenty-two years ^, :

The body of B. Franklin, Printer Like the Cover of an Old Book Its Contents torn Out And Stript of Lettering and Gilding icts Lies Here, Food for Worms. But The Work Shall Not Be Lost; For It Will (as he Believ'd) Appear Once More In a New and More Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.

Body B. Franklin, printer, as the cover of an old book stripped of its leaves, its title and its gilding Lies here, food for worms. But the book will not be lost and reappear, it is the faith of Franklin, a new edition, more elegant, revised and corrected by the Author.

This epitaph was not used. On his tomb, containing only a few words: Benjamin and Deborah Franklin 1790.

Works

• Science du Bonhomme Richard, or the Way of Fortune (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1732-1758)
• I, Benjamin Franklin - Citizen of the World, Man of the Enlightenment (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1793) Dunod, 2006
• Mixtures of morality, economics, textbooks Benfamin of Franklin, by Charles Renouard, 1829

References

1. According to the Gregorian calendar. On 6 January, according to the Julian calendar still in force in England until 1752
2. Today, Boston Latin School
3. In the colonial adventure, Daniel Borstin (The American Collection Robert Laffont, 1991) describes the specific material difficulties of the printers in the British colonies, starting with the lack of typographic characters (whose manufacture is strictly controlled by the British power ), poor quality of paper and the ink printing, as well as the lack of press (p. 314 et seq.)
4. The platform of the left bank of the river Auray is still called "Franklin Wharf" in his memory.
5. Text of the Treaty of Paris
6. Text of the Constitution of the United States of America
7. as was the case of Georg Wilhelm Richmann
8. The first aerial voyage as told by Benjamin Franklin, Nature
9. Voituriez Bruno, The Gulf Stream, UNESCO, Paris, 2006 ( ISBN 2746702347 ) , P.19
10. A. Van Beek, "Brief on the ownership of oil to calm the waves and make the surface of the water completely transparent," in J. Pharm. Chim. , Vol. 1, ^No. 2, July 1842, p. 46-52 ( ISSN 0368-3591 ) See also

    External Links

    • (En) (fr) Project Gutenberg's Life of Franklin, written by himself - Volume I
    • (In) 100 Milestone Documents
    • (In) Celebrating the tercentenary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin
    • Article on Imago Mundi
    • (In) Quotes

    Signatories to the Declaration of Independence United States
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    • Physics Portal
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