Every year on the 17th of January, the anniversary of his birthday, Benjamin Franklin Day is celebrated worldwide in order to pay tribute to one of the greatest Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He is well known for being on the 100 dollar bill. But what did he do to deserve such an honor while George Washington, the first president of the United States, is only on the $1 bill? Why do we have a whole day dedicated to him?
Benjamin Franklin was born on the 17th of January, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts, as the 10th son of his family. In his youth, his father wanted him to be educated, but unfortunately couldn’t afford the school tuition, so Benjamin Franklin attended only one year of grammar school and studied one year with a private tutor. The boy didn’t graduate, and school ended for him when he was 10 years old. Although that didn’t stop him from teaching himself using books. For a while, he served as an apprentice to his brother, James, which means he rapidly acquired skills in the printing trade while performing the job, which helped him for the rest of his life. The boy was full of ideas and wanted to publish his own work, but no one ever allowed him. The clever kid created a false persona: a widow called Silence Dogood. He wrote 14 essays on various themes that intrigued people, which were published under the pen name. However, all good things must come to an end, and James, who was essentially his boss, found out. He was angered by his repulsive behavior and actions. That’s when Benjamin decided to run away and start a new life, but because he was an apprentice, running away meant he was a fugitive.
The 17-year-old fled to Philadelphia seeking independence and a fresh start after failing to find a job in New York. He took advantage of the fact that Philadelphia was tolerant and open-minded towards religion. There, he worked in several printing shops but always strived for more. While living there, he met Deborah Read, whom he wanted to marry. He got along with other young men who shared a passion for reading. He was manipulated by Sir William Keith, the governor of Pennsylvania, to travel to London, England. Unfortunately, only after being overseas did Benjamin realize that the governor didn’t make the promised connections. When he noticed they weren’t ever going to become more than a pretty story, a fantasy, he quickly found work in London but returned to Pennsylvania when the opportunity for a better workplace arose.
As he returned, Deborah was already married to someone else, but later on, that man exploited her for her money and left. Benjamin and Deborah had an unusual marriage. She wasn’t allowed to marry someone else due to the laws at that time, and he had an illegitimate son, whose mother was never identified. They finally got married on September 1st, 1770.
Upon returning from London, he opened his own printing shop, which was a total success due to Ben’s hard work. In addition, the Franklins also ran their own store, where the wife sold all kinds of useful objects, such as fabric and soap. Benjamin even ran his own bookstore alongside the printing shop!
In 1729, Ben bought his own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, where he not only printed papers, but also anonymously posted articles and essays under aliases.
During the development of the printing shop and the newspaper, Ben’s social side began to show. He formed the group Junto, which consisted of like-minded people who aspired to improve themselves and their community. It had the same purpose as the English coffeehouses of the time, as they were the center of Enlightenment ideas in Britain. The members also read books as a form of self-improvement, but books were expensive and rare. This is why they initially created a library assembled from books written by themselves, and later, when it was no longer sufficient for them, Franklin came up with an idea: a subscription library. This is how the Library Company of Philadelphia was born in 1731.
All his involvement in the community earned him the respect of everyone who knew him. Not only was he important in the printing, writing, and publishing industry – printing the first newspaper in the German language in America, called Die Philadelphische Zeitung – but he also became much more. Unfortunately, the newspaper wasn’t successful, failing after only a year due to the competition from newer ones. Benjamin saw himself as worthy of shaping the morality of people, which is what he was trying to do when he built the first newspaper chain. He tried to influence the morals of Americans through the printing network.
Between 1732 and 1757, Poor Richard’s Almanack was printed yearly. Poor Richard was an unschooled but experienced philosopher – a character created by Franklin under the pseudonym Richard Saunders – and had an immense impact and success amongst Americans.
Apart from his work in the shadows, he is also known for his contributions to society. He created the Union Fire Company, one of the earliest volunteer firefighting companies in America. 1736 was a busy year for him, forming the company and writing essays about the necessity of paper currency; his company won the job of printing all of Pennsylvania’s paper money, as well as the money for New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. As he grew older, he became busier with public affairs. That’s how, in 1749, a group of people, including our celebrated figure, founded the Academy, Charity School and College of Philadelphia, and he was selected as its president.
~ The Lightning Rod Experiment ~
In 1743, he discovered a curiosity for electricity and science. He and a few friends began to study this intriguing phenomenon, publishing a book in 1751 called Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Benjamin proved that electricity is a single fluid with positive and negative charges, which was a scientific breakthrough, as it was originally thought to be two types of fluid. He was also the first to establish the law of conservation of charge. Not only did he change science forever, he also invented and discovered all kinds of things. The most important being the lightning rod experiment, the three-wheeled clock and bifocal glasses. The lightning rod was one of Ben’s ideas when he was trying to prove that lightning was electricity and started worrying about how to protect people from it. Initially, the experiment involved a sharp iron rod about 8 to 10 feet long. As he grew impatient waiting for it to strike, he decided a kite tied with a silk ribbon to his knuckles and a metal key at the top would work better. The kite was struck by lightning, but Ben wasn’t hurt, even though the experiment was extremely dangerous. To this day, people consider he got lucky because the experiment wasn’t conducted during the storm’s most troubling moment .
As for his other two inventions, the purpose of the three-wheeled clock was to reset only once every 24 hours, which was a significant improvement. He created the wheel for hours, the one for minutes and the one for seconds. The idea of the bifocal glasses came from Franklin’s laziness to switch between two pairs of glasses. He cut and attached the segments of the two lenses into a single lens. It had a distinct switch between the lower and upper lenses. Peter Williams came up with the name and would later receive credit for trifocal lenses.
Although Franklin was extremely talented in this field, he didn’t see it as a public service, so he was more involved in politics. Since he retired from his work as a printer in 1747 and had leisure time, he joined the Philadelphia City Council, became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, where his job was to persuade the family of William Penn, who owned Pennsylvania under the colony’s charter, to allow taxes on their undeveloped lands. However, his hidden goal was to strip the Penn family of their control over the colony and turn Pennsylvania into a royal colony governed directly by the British Crown. This took place in England, and it is also when he stopped writing Poor Richard’s Almanack.
He became postmaster in 1753 and opened the first post office in 1755. For his job, he was required to live in England and was so busy with his involvement in society and politics that he ignored his wife’s letter mentioning her illness and dying while he was away.
In 1775, he was named the first United States Postmaster General, an easy decision since he was more than qualified, having decades of experience and amazing innovative ideas.
By that time, the American Revolution had already started. He was unanimously chosen as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and in 1776, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Five. They drafted the Declaration of Independence.
In that same year, Franklin went to France for business. He succeeded and secured a critical military alliance with France in 1778 and the signing of The Treaty of Paris in 1783. He is featured on the 100 dollar bill for convincing France to sign. One more of his achievements in France was the signing of The Edict of Versailles, since he was extremely tolerant towards religion.
His return meant a lot to the people, celebrating him as the second most important person, the first being George Washington, earning the title: “Champion of American Independence” and he was elected the sixth president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania.
On the 17th of April 1790, the now-famous Benjamin Franklin died of a pleuritic attack. His last words were directed toward his daughter, Sarah, after she wanted him to lay on his side for better breathing. He said, “A dying man can do nothing easy.” In attendance at his funeral were about 20.000 people, and he lies in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.
In conclusion, the man whose face is on the 100 USD bill is a remarkable man. He has many astonishing achievements. Benjamin contributed to a lot of different fields, even as a school dropout with only two years of studies completed. Not only did he transform the printing industry, but he also permanently impacted the scientific community. He fought for America’s freedom by drafting and signing the Declaration of Independence and other important documents to help the citizens of the US live better lives. He dedicated all his time to serving the country in the political department, placing his own needs as an afterthought. All Americans are extremely grateful for his involvement and chose his birthday as a day to commemorate him every year. On the 17th of January, we celebrate the memory of Benjamin Franklin for everything he did to make the world a better place.
Interesting facts:
- The illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, named William, also had an illegitimate son, named William.
- Benjamin Franklin is featured on the 100 dollar bill for convincing France to sign the Treaty of Paris.
- There is a university named after him in Boston: the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Theology.
- The University of Pennsylvania is the institution he founded and is now part of the Ivy League.
- When Benjamin wrote under the alias of the widow, men would write back, asking to marry her.
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