Benjamin Franklin

Enlightenment philosopher

• Key ideas: reason, progress, natural rights, empiricism
• as Silence Dogood with brother James at Boston Courant 1721
  
• Cotton Mather promoted innoculation against smallpox tested by Dr. Zabdiel Boylston in Boston 1721
• Pennsylvania Gazette 1729, Poor Richard's Almanac 1732
  
• published 110 tracts for George Whitefield 1739-41
  
• Philadelphia booster - progress, perfectibility
  
  • Junto 1727 for "mutual improvement" led to 1743 American Philosophical Society
    
  • Library Co. 1731 for "purposeful reading"
    
  • clerk of the Assembly
    
  • Union Fire Co. 1737 for volunteers, subscribers
    
  • Philadelphia postmaster 1737, for colonies 1753-74; 1st fixed penny rate
    
  • Association for Defense 1747 - "Love your neighbor yet don't pull done your hedge"
    
  • hospital, street cleaning, police watch
• retired from business 1748 - Philadelphia 2nd largest city
  

Scientist

• 1750 experiments with Leyden jars, turkeys
  
• 1751 book Experiments and Observations on Electricity
  
• 1752 kite experiment - "he snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants" (Turgot)
  
• inventor of improved stove, bifocals,
• studied Gulf Stream, soybeans
• was the leader of a growing scientific community in America, see examples at Franklin and His Friends from National Portrait Gallery

Colonial Agent

• urged colonies to unite at Albany Congress 1754
• to London for PA 1757
  
• Royal Society, clubs, taverns
  
• improved the glass armonica in 1761, played by Mozart, Mesmer
• opposed Stamp Act 1766
  
• used cartoons to persuade public opinion

Congressional leader

• returned to Philadelphia May 1775
  
• served on 10 committees for 2nd Continental Congress
  
• Committee of Secret Correspondence Nov. 29 -foreign aid, recognition
  
• Declaration of Independence with Jefferson, Adams - to inform a "candid world"
  
• Model Treaty of John Adams - trade, not alliance
  
• "a virgin state should preserve the virgin character and not go about suitoring for alliance" (Franklin)
  
• Beaumarchais started secret aid through Hortalez Co.
  
• Congress created Navy Oct. 13, 1776 and authorizes privateering
  
• "First Salute" (Barbara Tuchman book) at St. Eustatius from Dutch fort on arrival of brig Andrew Dora flying flag of Congress Nov. 16, 1776
  
• 3 agents sent to Europe: Franklin, Arthur Lee, Silas Deane
  

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