
But Franklin’s management of the paper and his free-thinking displeased the authorities. When, after various journalistic indiscretions, James Franklin in 1722 was forbidden to publish the Courant, Benjamin Franklin’s name appeared as publisher instead - and received with much favor - chiefly because of the cleverness of his articles signed Dr Janus. After repeated successes of the same sort, Franklin threw off his disguise and contributed regularly to the Courant. It was printed and attracted some attention. His success in reproducing articles he had read in The Spectator led him to write an article for his brother’s paper, which he slipped under the door of the printing shop with no name attached. Thanks to his father’s excellent advice, he gave up writing doggerel verse (much of which had been printed by his brother and sold on the streets) and turned to prose composition. At an early age he had made himself familiar with The Pilgrim’s Progress, with John Locke’s, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and with The Spectator. started one of the earliest newspapers in America, the New England Courant.įranklin’s tastes had at first been for the sea rather than the pulpit now they inclined to intellectual pleasures. In his 13th year he was apprenticed to his half-brother James, who was establishing himself in the printing business, and who, in 1721. When he was ten, he was removed from school to assist his father in his business of tallow chandler (candle maker) and soap boiler. He spent a year there and then a year in a school for writing and arithmetic. At eight years old he was sent to Boston Grammar School, destined by his father for the church as a “tithe” of his sons.
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He had married young and migrated from Banbury to Boston in 1685.īenjamin Franklin could not remember when he did not know how to read. Born at Ecton in Northamptonshire, England, the elder Franklin’s strongly Protestant family can be traced back nearly four centuries. He was the tenth son of Josiah Franklin, and the eighth child and youngest son of ten children borne by Abiah Folger, his father’s second wife. The Autodidact The Printer and Journalist The Community Organizer The Politician and Diplomatīenjamin Franklin, American diplomat, statesman, and scientist, was born in a house on Milk Street - opposite the Old South Church - in Boston, Massachusetts in 1706.

Besides his printing business, Franklin was also postmaster of Pennsylvania beginning in 1737.He himself estimates (in his Autobiography) that it sold annually near ten Thousand copies. Poor Richard’s Almanack, published each year from 1732 to 1757 made Franklin a very wealthy man.They do not marry until 7 years later (). Deborah Read, his future wife, saw him on the first day he arrived in Philadelphia with a roll of bread under each Arm, and the eating of the other.In addition, Franklin also spent some 28 years abroad, in England and France, at various times through his life.He did not arrive in Philadelphia until he was 17 (). Though associated with Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was born and raised in Boston.17 April 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
