Benjamin Franklin biography
Statesman, Scientist and Businessman

A great scholar, a scientist, and a hugely successful businessman, the Benjamin Franklin biography deals with his profound knowledge, innovations and his great success in terms of money, reputation, popularity make his ideas put forward in the 18th century, still relevant in the 21st century.

Born, January 17th, 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin was the tenth and the youngest son of Josiah Franklin and mother Abiah (Folger) Franklin. From a very young age, Benjamin had a flair for reading and writing; which is why, without even having the opportunity to complete his education in school, he started reading Plutarch, Defoe, and Cotton Mather in the year 1717 when he was only 11. An year later, at the age of twelve, Benjamin was sent to work as an apprentice in a printing shop that his brother James owned. While working there, Benjamin heard the news of the capture of a pirate known as Blackbeard and wrote a ballad on it.

In the year 1720, Benjamin was shifted to a boarding house where he studied whenever he was free from his brother's printing job. He was so devoted to his study that he had stopped going to church on Sundays, so that he can study the whole day.

In 1723, Ben ran away from his hometown Boston to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was because he could no longer tolerate the tortures of his brother James, who had just returned from jail. James was captured earlier on charges of "contempt".

In Philadelphia, Benjamin found a job in a printing shop. He became so popular for his bright performance that, William Keith, the governor of Pennsylvania sent him to London in 1724 to know more about the latest developments in the printing industry. After staying and working in London for two years, Ben returned to Philadelphia in 1726.

The year 1727 brought with it a bad news for Benjamin when he suffered a pleurisy attack. Later that year, he found a society for young men that he named the Junto, which later came to be known as the American Philosophical Society. The next year, Ben started his own printing business. With his bright performance and entrepreneurial zeal, he started publishing a newspaper - the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. In 1730, Benjamin married Deborah Read Rogers, whose husband had run away a few years ago.

Benjamin published the first edition of 'Poor Richard's Almanack', an yearbook where he poured his thoughts out under the name of Richard Saunders in the year 1732. This was the very same year when his son Francis Folger was born. In 1737, Benjamin Franklin became the Postmaster of Philadelphia. The following were quite eventful years of Franklin's life.

In 1742, he put forward the proposal for building an Academy which we know today as the University of Pennsylvania. In 1748, Ben sold off his printing business and retired. Though this was far from the end of the Benjamin Franklin biography for he could now concentrate entirely on his experiments and came up with the world-famous kite experiment in 1752.

Benjamin found the first fire insurance company in America in the same year. In the year 1757 he was elected as the representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly to London. He stayed there until 1762. He again had to visit London as the American colonial representative in 1764. In 1775, he was elected in the Continental Congress.

In the year 1779, he was elected a Minister to France. He ended the American Revolutionary War by signing the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and in 1787 he signed the United States Constitution.

The Benjamin Franklin biography ends with his death in Philadelphia at the age of 84 on April 17, 1790. His funeral at Philadelphia's Christ Church Burial Ground was attended by twenty thousand mourners.

More Benjamin Franklin biography Resources

• Benjamin Franklin biography at USHistory.org.
• Download the Benjamin Franklin autobiography from Project Gutenberg.