New Delhi: Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents. A distinguished statesman and diplomat, he was one of the founding members of the United States. He was also a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence and the country’s first postmaster general, the chief executive officer of the United States Postal Service. Notably, Franklin was a scientist and inventor as well. In this article, we will learn more about the person who excelled in several fields.
Born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, Benjamin Franklin grew up along the Charles River. His school education ended when he was just 10 years old due to the financial constraints of his family. father wanted him to attend school with the clergy but only had enough money to send him to school for two years. However, Benjamin was a keen learner who continued his education through voracious reading. His parents pondered about church as a career but Benjamin had other ideas. He worked for his father for a time and became an apprentice to his brother James a printer at the age of 12. James taught him the printing trade.
He was also an excellent writer and became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia and published the Pennsylvania Gazette when he was just 23. That Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanack made him wealthy. After 1767, he became a part of the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper which was popular for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the policies of the British Parliament and the Crown.
Benjamin Franklin was Academy and College of Philadelphia’s first president which would later become the University of Pennsylvania. Also, he was the American Philosophical Society’s first secretary. In 1753, he became the deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies which allowed him to form the first national communications network.
Benjamin was an active politician in the US and also on the international stage. As an agent in London for several colonies, he led the repeal of the British Parliament’s unpopular Stamp Act and it made him a hero among the Americans. As the first US ambassador to France, he was admired and played a crucial role in the development of positive US-France relations. He also played a vital role in securing French help during the American Revolution. He was the President of Pennsylvania from 1785 to 1788. Since the late 1750s, he became a vocal critic of slavery, and an active abolitionist, and promoted the assimilation of African Americans into the US society.
A prodigious inventor, Benjamin created several things including the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, the flexible urinary catheter and the Franklin stove. He never patented his inventions as he wanted to serve people through them. In the 1740s, he started to research electricity and proposed that ‘vitreous’ and ‘resinous’ electricity were the same “fluid” under different pressures. He was the first person who labelled them as positive and negative. Also, Benjamin discovered the principle of conservation of charge. As part of his experiments, he once hosted a dinner party where a turkey was killed via electric shock and roasted on an electrical spit. He prepared several turkeys in that method and was shocked by a pair of Leyden jars in the process. He also explored electrotherapy and made the field popular. Also, he advised Harvard University when it got a new electrical laboratory apparatus after the complete loss of its original collection.
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