The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin: How Has The World Changed Over Time

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How has the world changed over time? Listening to tales from our grandparents and great-grandparents, it is easy to deduce, that the world has changed a decent amount, even from just the span of a century, but some things have remained the same. And what happens if we look at the similarities in the world from an even greater time span? Reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, provided an opportunity to look at the similarities and differences in the world from a greater time frame: the 1700’s to the 2000’s. While looking at the differences between the past and the present, one similarity remains evident, even with the changes that occur throughout time, the need for a person reach their full potential. In Benjamin Franklin’s time, people chose a career around the age of twelve, with the help of their parents. By choosing a career at the age of twelve, a lot of pressure was put on a child to a career that would best benefit, while at the same time interest, them in the future. Benjamin Franklin wrote about how he wanted to be a sailor, but his father …show more content…

Many people would attempt to start new businesses, change jobs, move to different places, meet new people, or even create new inventions to make money. Everyone’s goal was to have plenty of money to support themselves and their families. For example, Franklin writes in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin about a stove that he invented, but chose not to patent, instead Franklin states that, “An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it” (85-86). The ironmonger’s ambition to take Franklin’s invention and turn it around so that he, himself, might profit off of it, was similar to the ambition of everyone else at the

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