FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. - Writer, inventor, diplomat, b. in Boston on 17 Jan. 1706, d. in Philadelphia on 17 Apr. 1790. He spent his early youth in the austerely Puritan climate of New England. Self-taught and greedy for reading, influenced by the authors into which he delved (Collins, Shaftesbury, Locke, etc.), he soon passed to deism and to an earthly, utilitarian morality, which he practiced for the rest of his life and wittily preached and spread through his writings.
He was an apprentice in the printing shop of his brother James, learning the trade that he then practiced for many years and to which he owed his prosperity. Having moved to Philadelphia (1723), a city more open to new currents of thought, he acquired fame as an educator and benefactor, founding newspapers, cultural associations, a public library, and publishing for over 20 years Poor Richard's Almanack, in which he collected aphorisms and maxims inspired by a prudent common sense; and as a scientist, with his studies on electricity and the invention of the lightning rod (1752). A member of Freemasonry, a convinced advocate of a utilitarian religion of bourgeois virtues, inspired by the prevailing philanthropism and humanitarianism and by the facile optimism of his time, he placed full trust in the power of reason and education to improve man's lot on earth.
He devoted himself to politics especially in the second half of the century, with various missions as a representative of the American colonies in England (1757-62 and 1764-75). During the conflict between them and the mother country, an enemy of violence, he at first favored a policy of conciliation; but from 1768 onward he aligned himself decisively with the patriots and was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (1776). Sent to France by the new Confederation, he was received there triumphantly. Already popular thanks to the wide circulation of his writings, he won the sympathies of French society, which saw in him the symbol and personification of the new man that the Enlightenment sought and exalted. He negotiated treaties of alliance and commerce with Louis XVI (1778), Sweden (1783) and Prussia (1785). In 1783 he signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the war with England. Having returned to his homeland, he took part in the work on the new constitution (1787), carrying out a work of conciliation within an assembly divided by conflicting tendencies.
Works: The writings of B. F., 10 vols. edited by A. H. Smyth (New York 1905-1907).
Bibliography2 works
Gabriele Mussati.