If I could recommend one book to a new student of history, who wants to see late colonial America through the eyes of those who lived in it, what would that book be? If I were to add one book to the curriculum for high school freshmen — a book to be read and pondered by youths just setting out on the period of life when one’s work ethic, and the kind of company one keeps, will determine his future happiness — what volume would I choose? What if I had to pick one book that best illustrates how an industrious small businessman can rise to greatness in a small but growing American town?
I would answer all these questions with the same book: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
It is hardly a perfect book, not least because it was written in fits and starts — begun in 1771 (when Franklin was 65 years old), set aside during the Revolutionary War, and picked up again in France a year before his return to Philadelphia in 1785. Between the author’s poor health, his being president of Pennsylvania, and his work at the Constitutional Convention, he hardly had more time to work on it before dusk finally fell on him at age 84. (The narrative breaks off abruptly in 1758 — a full seven years before the Stamp Act that had set off all those later events.)
The Autobiography should not be read alone. Not only does it leave out half the story, but there are elements told with more clarity and skill by outside voices. H.W. Brands’s The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, is a fine volume; at about 720 pages, it is much longer than the 176 page Autobiography, but with such interesting subject matter, there is no risk of getting bored. Brands’s book was a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize. If that doesn’t seem impressive enough, you could go with William Cabbel Bruce’s or Carl Van Doren’s biographies, which won their respective Pulitzers in 1918 and 1939.
Most published versions of the Autobiography will be bound together with a collection of Franklin’s “Other Writings,” though which of these other writings one gets to read depends on the preference of the editor. Some volumes go heavy on political philosophy or personal virtue, others are more interested in Franklin the scientist (whose work goes well beyond that famous scene with the lightning and the kite), and yet others prefer to focus on his most humorous and whimsical works — like the letter where he describes how, as a boy of about ten swimming naked in a Boston pond, he had discovered that he could use a kite to sail across the water with hardly any effort. Or the pamphlet written near the end of his life, when he boasted of how much candle-money he could save for the people of Paris, if only they ceased doing so much business by night and hearkened to Franklin’s discovery (unknown ‘til then!) that not only does the sun rise around 6 o’clock each morning, but “that he gives light as soon as he rises.”
The story begins in Boston, where Benjamin was born in January of 1706 to Josiah and Abiah Franklin, he being the youngest son out of the seventeen children of Josiah and his two wives. Josiah Franklin was a tallow-chandler (i.e., a candle- and soap-maker) who had immigrated from England in the hopes of finding a better place to raise a large family in his strict Puritan faith.
The broad outline of Franklin’s life is likely already familiar to most of my readers. The Autobiography, seeking to honor its author’s parents, passes over many of the harder aspects of his relationship with them, though it’s impossible to hide the fact that he found Boston’s intellectual climate stultifying, with its endless disputations among stern Protestant sects, each convinced that without rigorous doctrinal correctness, sinners had no hope of withstanding the wrath of God.
My Father’s little Library consisted chiefly of Books in polemic Divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a Thirst for Knowledge, more proper Books had not fallen in my Way.
In other ways, Franklin’s childhood was a happy one:
Living near the Water, I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage Boats; and when in a Boat or Canoe with other Boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of Difficulty; and upon other Occasions I was generally a Leader among the Boys.
Josiah eventually realized that his youngest son was unlikely to become a clergyman (as he at first hoped) and that the boy also disliked the tallow-chandler trade so much that he was in danger of running away to sea. Thus, twelve-year-old Benjamin was apprenticed to his elder brother James, a printer. The brothers got along poorly — James often exercised his legal right to beat Benjamin, while Benjamin, for his part, eventually ran away to Boston a little before his 18th birthday rather than serving ’til 21. That Benjamin was cleverer than James did not help; it’s well known that Benjamin’s earliest published works were a string of commentaries on Boston society under the pen name “Silence Dogood” — a young woman whose erudition James admired until he found out who it was that was slipping the letters under his door at night.
From the beginning, Benjamin showed his trademark virtues of industry and thrift. He became a vegetarian, eating bread and raisins while his brother dined on meats with a neighbor, and spending the money that he saved on books. Soon he had also become enthusiastic about the health benefits and superior ethics of his diet, though this conviction lasted only until he fled Boston for Philadelphia by sea:
Being becalmed off Block Island, our People set about catching Cod and haul’d up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my Resolution of not eating animal Food, and on this Occasion, I consider’d with my Master Tryon, the taking every Fish as a kind of unprovok’d Murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable.
But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, and, when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between Principle and Inclination, till I recollected that, when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I dined upon Cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other People, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
It is impossible to keep describing Franklin’s story in even this paltry level of detail — one has simply got to read it for oneself. One will meet with a number of colorful characters. There is John Collins, the other “Bookish Lad” in Boston who was young Benjamin’s most trusted friend, and who followed him to Philadelphia only to show that, away from the strict eyes of Boston’s Puritans, he couldn’t handle the temptation of drink. There is Samuel Keamer, the eccentric Philadelphia printer who hired Franklin as a journeyman, and who became so dependent on Franklin’s intellect and industrious habits (which he himself lacked) that he could never quite be rid of him, despite his many attempts.
There is Sir William Keith, the “compleat Rascal” of a governor, whose offer to send Franklin to London with money to buy a press and type and set up for himself, not quite a year after the youth appeared in Philadelphia, left Franklin feeling very proud of himself — until his ship arrived and he found that the bills of credit that Keith had promised him were missing, and that he would have to earn his own way as a journeyman in London. (It was there that he was nicknamed “the Water-American” for his refusal to take up the Londoners’ habit of drinking beer at all hours of the day.)
Then there is James Ralph (“I think I never knew a prettier Talker”), a young rapscallion from his literary society (Franklin was founding new clubs and societies wherever he went). Ralph accompanied Franklin to London under the pretense of buying merchandise; in reality, he was deserting his wife and infant daughter. Having convinced himself that he would soon become a famous poet, Ralph borrowed money liberally from Franklin and annoyed him with requests for commentary on a long epic poem that he was writing.
Their relationship ended abruptly, when Franklin yielded to the temptation of romancing a woman Ralph was involved with, after which Ralph made off with Franklin’s money. For decades, Franklin heard nothing more of the man, though in the end he was surprised to hear that Ralph had actually made it as a writer, authoring major works of English political history with titles like The Use and Abuse of Parliaments. (His poetry remained bad.)
Franklin, for his part, later called the woman business one of the “errata of my life.” Though his frequent philanderings are no secret, he made plain in his writings that he thought chastity was an important virtue and that his affairs were an embarrassment that no one ought to imitate.
Three years later, Franklin was back at Samuel Keamer’s printinghouse in Philadelphia, where not long afterward Deborah Reed, the fiancée with whom he’d abruptly broken off his engagement when he found himself stranded in London, had become his wife — though the marriage had its own collection of difficulties.
The narrative follows Benjamin Franklin as he opens his own print shop, begins publishing a newspaper called the Pennsylvania Gazette, sires three children, and creates his most famous character: Poor Richard, the wit-dispensing almanack-maker who, since John Paul Jones’s day, has had three U.S. Navy ships named after him. Franklin’s industrious habits and his conduct in public life, his drive to make himself useful to his adopted city and to be persuasive while offending as few people as possible — all of these are worthy of study by anyone who aspires to be a successful entrepreneur or a notable citizen of his town.
One memorable incident is, I think, especially worth quoting, as it shows the attitude that propelled the young printer so far in life. After being commissioned to print a history of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, Franklin and his partner Hugh Meredith
work’d exceeding hard, for the Price was low. It was a Folio, Pro Patria Size, in Pica with Long Primer Notes. I compos’d of it a Sheet a Day, and Meredith worked it off at Press. It was often 11 at Night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my Distribution for the next day’s Work: for the little Jobbs sent in by our other Friends now and then put us back. But so determin’d I was to continue doing a Sheet a Day of the Folio, that one Night when having impos’d my Forms, I thought my Day’s Work over, one of them by accident was broken and two Pages reduced to Pie, I immediately distributed and compos’d it over again before I went to bed. And this Industry visible to our Neighbors, began to give us Character and Credit.
As both a printer and the holder of several public offices — most notably postmaster general — Franklin had a fascinating place at the center of early America’s intellectual, religious, and political life. For instance, we can read his thoughts on the controversy of Reverend Samuel Hemphill, whose sermons had too much morality (and thus too little Presbyterian doctrine) to avoid causing a scandal in the Presbyterian church, though his brief tenure was the only time that Franklin was a regular churchgoer.
We readers are also told about the crowds that flocked to hear George Whitfield preach his revival sermons, the sometimes comical ways that Quakers wriggled out of their sect’s commitment to pacifism, and the political impasses caused by Pennsylvania’s Proprietors — the children of William Penn who had inherited the right to appoint the colony’s governor — caring for nothing except to keep their personal estates exempt from taxes, even when all of British America was in a commotion during the French and Indian War, a conflict in which Franklin himself took no small part.
And then there are the clubs and societies that Franklin kept founding — the Junto, the Fire Companies, the Association for General Defense, the Pennsylvania Academy, and finally (in his wealthy and influential middle age) the American Philosophical Society. And there are Franklin’s experiments with electricity, and Franklin’s quest to enumerate a set of thirteen virtues and live by them exactly, making black marks in a little daily journal whenever he failed on one point or another. (“I was surpriz’d to find myself so much fuller of Faults than I had imagined.”)
Trying to summarize this book any more would be fruitless. It is not without reason that it has garnered such praises as “Franklin’s is one of the greatest autobiographies in literature, and towers over other autobiographies as Franklin towered over other men,” and “[it is] the most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men.”
If you are at all interested in American history, you should read it. If you are at all interested in entrepreneurship, you should read it. If you have a son or a grandson or a nephew who’s starting high school, or finishing high school, and you’re looking for a present to mark the occasion — then this is the book to go with.
Twilight Patriot is the pen name of a young American who lives in South Carolina, where he is currently working toward a graduate degree. A longer version of this essay — one that doesn’t stop with Franklin’s Autobiography but also reviews some of the letters and pamphlets that are commonly published with it — can be found at his Substack.
Image via Pexels.
Jesus Christ is King
