Constitiution Day

Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 into a large family; he was the tenth son and one of seventeen siblings. He was self-educated because his family could only afford to send him to school for one year. That ended young Benjamin's father's hopes for him to become a clergyman; instead, he went to work as a printer's apprentice for James Franklin, one of his older brothers, when he was twelve. Three years later, his brother launched the first real newspaper in Boston; it was called The New England Courant. James was briefly jailed for publicly criticizing the clergy during debates and Ben ran the newspaper until James was released. Ben did a good job but his brother was more jealous of him than appreciative and he treated Ben very harshly, sometimes even beating him. By the time Ben was seventeen, he had had enough and he ran away from his family, heading to Philadelphia.

Ben found work as a printer using the skills he had learned working for his older brother and eventually did work for the governor of Pennsylvania. In that capacity, he sailed to Britain to purchase printing equipment and worked as a printer in England for several months as well. Before leaving for England, Ben had been living with the family of Deborah Read whom he married seven years later. In the meantime, she actually married someone else because Ben refused to marry her when she first broached the subject. Upon his return from England, he borrowed money to start his own print shop and became so good at his craft that he became very well-known as a printer, working for the state government as well.

Ben had his first son, William at the age of twenty-two, but there is no historical record of the identity of William's mother. More than a decade later, in 1730, he finally reconnected with Deborah read after her husband left her and they were married. They ran the print shop, a general store, and a bookstore. Ben published a very successful Almanac called Poor Richard's Almanac, which he ghost-wrote under the fictional persona of Richard Sanders, supposedly a poor man who supported his family publishing the almanac.

While Benjamin Franklin is best known for his famous kite-flying experiment, he was creative in many other ways. By the time he was in his early forties, Ben had become successful enough as a printer (and as the owner of printing franchises) that he retired from the profession and began spending time working on his inventions. In addition to the Franklin Stove that heated homes more efficiently, he also invented bifocals, swim fins, and musical instruments. He also spearheaded community-improvement projects throughout Philadelphia and he founded a library to increase public access to books because printed books were so expensive that only the wealthy could actually afford to own them. He founded a hospital and he organized the first fire department in Philadelphia. To spread the cost of fires, he also introduced the concept of risk-sharing by organizing the Philadelphia Contribution for Insurance Against Loss by Fire.