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Ben Franklin Inventions
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American printer, author, diplomat, philosopher, and scientist,
whose many contributions to the cause of the American Revolution (1775-1783), and the newly formed
federal government that followed, rank him among the country’s greatest statesmen.
Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston. His father, Josiah Franklin had 17 children;
Benjamin was the 15th child and the 10th son. His mother, Abiah Folger, was his father’s second wife.
After his attendance at grammar school from age eight to ten, Benjamin was taken into his father’s business.
Finding the work uncongenial, however, he started working for a cutler.
At age 13 he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had recently returned from England with a
new printing press. Benjamin learned the printing trade, devoting his spare time to the advancement
of his education. His reading included Pilgrim’s Progress by the British preacher John Bunyan,
Parallel Lives, the work of the Greek essayist and biographer Plutarch, Essay on Projects by the
English journalist and novelist Daniel Defoe, and the Essays to Do Good by Cotton Mather, the
American Congregational clergyman.
In 1721 his brother James Franklin established the New England Courant, and Benjamin, at the age of 15,
was busily occupied in delivering the newspaper by day and in composing articles for it at night.
These articles, published anonymously, won wide notice and acclaim for their pithy observations on
the current scene. Because of its liberal bias, the New England Courant frequently incurred the
displeasure of the colonial authorities. In 1722, as a consequence of an article considered particularly
offensive, James Franklin was imprisoned for a month and forbidden to publish his paper, and for a
while it appeared under Benjamin’s name.
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