The most fascinatingly versatile of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin lived a rags-to-riches life that was marked by scientific achievement, a wide range of social service, and vitally important leadership in the establishment of our Republic. At heart an innovator and inventor; the number, variety, and practicality of his contributions make him unique in American history. Many of us are familiar with Franklin’s “big” contributions – the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and the bifocal glasses.

Lesser known perhaps, are his innovations in funding useful projects by matching grants or his borrowing ideas for Colonial confederation from the Iroquois Nation’s loose but effective organizational structure. Although he once wrote that there was “...no such thing as a bad peace or a good war,” Ben was a military man. When the Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania Assembly refused to consider the threat posed by a band of French and Indians moving towards Philadelphia in 1747, it was Ben who imagined and created America’s first militia! Franklin was far, far more than just a man with a kite.

Franklin epitomized the emerging, American identity. The tenth son of a Boston candlemaker, Ben rejected traditional, European values of birth and class as determiners of one’s future. The only Founding Father proudly rooted in the “middling class,” Franklin valued the practical skills his background fostered. With only two years of formal education, he became what Americans call today the “self-made” man, pulling himself up by values Americans have always cherished: hard work, frugality, ethical living, a lifelong curiosity, and service to one’s community and nation. The mobility and ability to reinvent one’s life for which Americans are known today have their model in Franklin—a successful businessman, printer, writer, civic leader, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. The combination of dreamer and realist that was Franklin helped him imagine a new kind of “united” states, where government was truly of, by, and for the people. And in 1787, his prestige, experience, age, and wisdom helped him to convince other delegates of the Constitutional Convention to create that government--a Republic--for future generations.

From his books he read, Franklin became convinced of the importance of forming associations to build consensus and thereby help his adopted city of Philadelphia progress. He had already seen the effectiveness of this basic concept as his networking group, the “Junto,” had already helped create the first public library, the first hospital, a new university, and many smaller but practical improvements in the city. This belief in the power of association to effect change was the motivating force in Ben’s calling together some of the best minds in the colonies in 1754--long before thoughts of independence began bubbling up.

At this meeting in Albany, NY, borrowing some of the ideas that Ben had picked up from the Iroquois Nation’s loose but effective organization, delegates began, for the first time, to work together and to see that in collaboration and dialogue they were able to solve problems common to the all. This was the beginning of a sense of common identity that was to culminate, years later, in the Declaration of Independence, and certainly influenced Franklin and others to champion the concept of a Republic for our new nation’s structure. It is no coincidence that it was Franklin who gave our country its motto: E Pluribus Unum--Out of Many, One.

Franklin became America’s first real diplomat and the only one of our Founding Fathers to sign all four key documents of our new nation. Across his 84-year life, this self-taught man became internationally honored for his scientific contributions and was, by far, the best- known American in Europe, whose simple dress and manner belied a keen intelligence, a charming wit and enormous stamina—all of which he put at the service of his country.

As a businessman, his imagination created the concept of franchising. As a printer, that fertile mind created anti-counterfeiting templates and imaginative ways to sell his newspapers and almanac. As a civic leader, that imagination helped create new ways to fund projects--the idea of “matching grants” was his. And his curiosity and imagination were, of course, at the root of many of his inventions and scientific contributions. As Ambassador to France, he was imaginative enough to “do diplomacy differently and not follow the worn-out patterns he had used in England.

Widely thought to be either agnostic or atheist, and seldom attending church, Ben nevertheless had a strong religious faith, supporting different religions in imaginative ways. He imagined a land where all faiths would be free to flourish and respect each other. This thought helped power his support for the separation of Church and State during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. To cite one example, he helped finance the construction of a new synagogue in Philadelphia, Mitvak Israel, a congregation that still thrives there. Upon his death, Ben’s funeral cortège was the largest in American history and at the head of the procession marched all the clergy of Philadelphia, their arms locked in honor of Ben’s support for religious institutions.

Rejecting the constraints of a Puritan theology that often treated the examination of natural phenomena as religious heresy, Franklin and others like him believed that “the best way to serve God was by doing good for Man.” This new attitude led to his many scientific contributions, including the crucial discovery that lightning was electricity and its dangers could be lessened. In this, too, he represented a new type, a man proud to be enlightened by science as well as Revelation, a man unafraid to confront orthodox thinking in order to contribute to the public good. Thus did Franklin epitomize this new breed, this emerging personality we have come to call American.                                                                                   

Link to Suggested Reading

Link to Thomas Edison

Link to Emily Dickinson

Link to Langston Hughes

Link to Dr. Seuss

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