Benjamin Franklin Struggles

Benjamin Franklin was one of the great minds of the eighteenth century. He faced struggles in the beginning of his life, but achieved countless of his dreams before the time of his death.

He was born on the sixth of January 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the tenth of fifteen children born into a family of Puritans. His parents, Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger, wanted him to become a minister, but were unable to provide enough money for him to pursue that path. Because of their poverty, he also had to be taken out of school at the age of ten.

At the age of twelve, Franklin became an apprentice to his brother, James, who owned a print shop. In 1721 James founded a weekly newspaper which was entitled the New-England Courant. Readers were

Franklin and his partner made it their top priority to secure their places as printers of Pennsylvania’s paper currency. A year later they achieved their dream and became the public printer for New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.

During his time in Philadelphia, Franklin met a young woman named Deborah Read. She was the only woman who would ever consider to marry him, considering he already had a son, named William, by a prostitute. Nevertheless, Deborah did not find him completely objectionable, and agreed to marry him. They were betrothed on September 1, 1730. Despite her dislike for William, Deborah and Benjamin had two children of their own. Their son Franky passed away when he was only four years of age. Their daughter Sarah lived long after they both passed.

In 1732, Franklin wrote “Poor Richard’s Almanac” which became an extremely popular book in colonial America. He became a clerk for the Pennsylvania Legislature in the year 1736. Later on, he was appointed to a position of power which he kept from 1751-1764 until he was kicked off due to his

After retiring he became a gentleman, which was an upstanding title in the eighteenth century. In 1751 he published his book entitled Experiments and Observations on Electricity. The findings in this book gained him quite a lot of fame. He invented the battery, and created new English words that could be used in the science of electricity, along with other discoveries.

In 1757 Franklin served at the diplomatic table in London, Paris, and Philadelphia. He was awarded a L.L.D. by St. Andrews and a D.L.C. by Oxford in the year 1759. By 1775 he was chosen to be a representative at the second Continental Congress, and to serve on the committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Franklin was on the committee with others, such as Thomas Jefferson, who knew exactly how to handle the writing of such a document. “They knew that leadership required not merely asserting values, but finding a balance when values conflict.” (Isaacson).

In the next year, he was appointed Minister to France and was in charge of negotiating a treaty for allegiance. In 1781 he became a member of the American delegation to the Paris peace conference. After two years Franklin assisted in signing the Treaty of Paris, which eventually led to the end of the Revolutionary