If you will, he was the prototype of the good American: He worked his way up from the smallest of backgrounds, got rich and did a lot for the community: Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the USA.
When little Benjamin was born in Boston in 1706 into the large family of a candle-maker, there was nothing to indicate the great career he would succeed. The bright boy was training to be a printer. Back then, printers weren’t just craftsmen, they were also publishers and editors rolled into one. Through various positions, he began as an apprentice to his brother James and later even worked for three years in England, Franklin managed to acquire his own newspaper. This newspaper, now called the Pennsylvania Gazette, soon became the most popular newspaper of the colonies in North America. And Franklin used the newspaper for his own purposes.
In 1747 Franklin, meanwhile involved in more than 20 printing works, was able to afford to turn his back on day-to-day business. He now devoted his time to electrical experiments – and that’s how he invented the lightning rod. He had long been involved in politics in many ways: as a member of the colonial parliaments, as a colonel in the North American militia or as the founder of the first voluntary fire brigade in Philadelphia.
But its great time was still to come, when in 1770 the gradual alienation between the colonies and the motherland came to a head, which ultimately culminated in a war and led to the establishment of the USA. Ultimately, Benjamin Franklin became the only one who signed all four of the United States’ four founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Peace Treaty with Great Britain, and the Constitution.
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