Benjamin Franklin: B. Franklin, Printer

Well, as promised I have begun my new book on Benjamin Franklin

Chapter One
Benjamin Franklin
And The Invention
Of America

Over time Americans find that they learn bits and pieces about the man on the $100.00 bill....we all fondly know as Benjamin Franklin. In chapter one we are reminded he arrived in Philadelphia, PA as a 17 year old bedraggled runaway. He started out his life as a runaway because he was tired of the apprentice work he was bound to complete with his older brother.... after B. Franklin worked until he felt he had learned more about printing than his oldest brother could teach him he was compelled to leave...as of the time period he went to his father to ask his permission to end his apprenticeship with his oldest brother. His father refused him.... long story short B. Franklin ran away and most of literature today will begin the start their discussions about B. Franklin as he arrived in Philadelphia exhausted, hungry and as he straggled off the boat and found himself wandering down Market Street purchasing three puffy rolls of bread that were popular to eat in Philadelphia. Ben had never eaten this type of bread before. In the meantime, his future wife Deborah Read was standing in her doorway of her home and she saw Ben walking down the street in a most disheveled appearance.

Follow up:

As part of that popular group called Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin is mostly loved because he was approachable... the man of the day, funny, interested in those around him, cheeky and giving us an unsettling sense that he could be one of our friends today.

Contemporary then and still today.

I connect with Ben Franklin the urban entrepreneur with never ending ambition ... as I look at his picture through my own color tented progressive bifocals as he wears his newfangled spectacles and I relate to him and how he has been an impact on every Americans life today. It is inspiring and I feel a sense of awe when I think of the years between his 84 year long life and what he accomplished for us that we still use today. A middle class man that made his way through life by exploring it.

He is certainly known as American's first and best know scientist and inventor. He spent time as a diplomat helping to author foreign policy which he wove idealism and balance-of-power into policy with ease! He was a common man with straight forward ideas.

Amazing how he improved our community for the common good. Such as the Lending Library "To pour fourth benefits for the common good is divine"

We all know about the kite, lightening and the lightening rod.
The electricity, clean burning stove, charts of the Gulf Stream, he watched the stars and the moon and our weather. He also made notes about the common cold.

He created polices to unit colonies and thus created thinking and foundations for the model of federal/national government.

B. Franklin crafted his own persona most of all. In the public eye he showed the community he was an industrious hard working young man as he rolled his wheel barrel down the street early in the morning bringing his paper to his print shop. Hard working and frugal.

As the old American diplomat in France he wore the fur cap of the backwoods sage to portray his role there.

Most of all Ben Franklin thought of himself as a hardworking middle-income man of the day. He had faith in himself and was comfortable with the thoughts he had about democracy. He believed in his shopkeeper values, faith in his own wisdom as well as that of the common man he believed in the people and that they would draw their strength to build a new nation build on virtues and values of its middle class. Devoid of snobbery that came from the aristocratic attitudes.

Since B. Franklin, publisher with an entrepreneurial spirit and proven life in an era of new and enlightenment... B. Franklin, publisher would fit in our community today and most likely would be sitting in a pub sharing stories and laughing at the most recent joke....as comfortable in today has he was in his period....

Let's end today with what David Brook's phrased, "our founding Yuppie" Benjamin Franklin, entrepreneur.... and let's think of the fundamental issue so well put by the author; "how does one live life that is useful, virtuous, worthy, moral, and spiritually meaningful? For that matter, which of these attributes is most important? These are questions just as vital for a self-satisfied age as they were for a revolutionary one.