The Capitalist Nature of Ben Franklin - Research Paper Example

?Capitalistic Nature of Ben Franklin A founding father of the United s of America, Ben Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts Bay. He was a renowned polymath and was famous for his writing and printing. Ben Franklin was good at idealizing political theories and this was something that made him a political theorist in essence. He was also a politician of his time, where he became the 6th President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania as well as the 23rd speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Ben Franklin was, in addition, the Minister to France from the United States as well as the Minister to Sweden prior to that. Earlier, he was the 1st United States Postmaster General. Apart from his politician role, he was also a scientist, an inventor, a statesman, a civic activist, a satirist and last but not the least, a diplomat. Ben Franklin was proud of his working class roots and hence became a renowned newspaper editor and a printer. He partnered with William Goddard and Joseph Galloway where all of these three individuals published the Pennsylvania Chronicle; a newspaper known for its out of the league emotions and criticisms of the British monarchy within the reins of the American colonies. His wealth is accredited due to the publishing of Poor Richard’s Almanack as well as The Pennsylvania Gazette. Ben Franklin’s life was considered very colorful because he knew a lot of traits and under his aegis; undertook professions which had far-reaching conclusions. This paper discusses the capitalistic nature of Ben Franklin. As an author, Ben Franklin started to publish the renowned Poor Richard Almanack. This happened in 1733. He did so for both the original and borrowed content. He used the pseudonym Richard Saunders for the same. His popularity is based on this rendition. This provided him the platform to pen down further publications with several pseudonyms. The character of Richard Saunders was in denial of the role of Ben Franklin within the publication of Poor Richard Almanack, however it was well-known amongst the relevant people as the secret had come out in the open very vividly and there was no hiding. Poor Richard’s proverbs came out of this almanac where one of the most famous ones is “a penny saved is two pence dear”, or more clearly suggested as “a penny saved is a penny earned”. Another one is the “fish and visitors stink in three days”. These are common proverbs in this day and age and remain very popular within the Western folklore. These are adapted within different occasions within the society’s hold and have the ability to be termed alongside the very popular ones that are being made use of in the society (McCrary, 2009). It was in those times that the people considered it wisdom to have an adage for every occasion and Ben Franklin’s readers were always prepared for such adages. By estimates, he sold about 10,000 copies annually, which by current times are equivalent to three million or more. It was in the year 1758 that Ben Franklin stopped writing for the Poor Richard Almanack. This was the time when he printed Father Abraham’s Sermon which was widely recognized as The Way to Wealth. Similarly, Ben Franklin’s autobiography kicked off in 1771 but got published after he died in 1790. This autobiography was hailed as one of the best known classics of the related genre. Ben Franklin was also a noted inventor. His work spoke for his own self. He invented a number of items, most important of which remained the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, flexible urinary catheter, the bifocal glasses and glass armonica. The glass armonica is a glass instrument and is very different from the metal harmonica. The most unfortunate part of his inventions was that he never patented them. In his autobiography, he confessed that he enjoyed utilizing others’ inventions but then was the time to allow others to make use of his inventions, and allow the people around the world to delve into the scope of how these inventions worked. He mentioned that he needed to do all this in a free and generous way so that the world could benefit due to these inventions. What is even more interesting is that he believed in the dictum of providing a collective good for the sake of the society through his inventions. Similarly, his inventions comprised of the social innovations like paying forward. These social innovations marked the starting of a new era altogether. This is something which is seen as an eye-opener as far as the works of Ben Franklin are concerned. His fascination with innovations was more altruistic than anything else as he believed in making use of his scientific works for the purpose of increasing efficiency as well as improvement and enhancement within the human ranks. To delve deep into this equation, one such improvement was seen within the realms of his effort towards expediting news services through his printing presses which were present. It was in the year 1743 that Ben Franklin inaugurated the American Philosophical Society so that it could facilitate the scientific individuals to contemplate their respective discoveries and theories of the time. Ben Franklin was very adamant about founding this society. The electrical research was initiated by Ben Franklin which was in close association with scientific inquiries that took the best out of his life. He did this in the middle of politics and moneymaking exercises which he was a part of. He went after other businesses subsequent to leaving printing in the year 1747, as he retired from printing in the same year. He partnered with David Hall who was his foreman. This essentially helped Ben Franklin to extract half of the shop’s profits for a period that spanned around 2 decades. This was indeed a lucrative business arrangement which provided a lot of time for leisure study. In a period a few years, he made giant discoveries which earned him the reputation of being one of the most educated individuals around the lengths and breadths of Europe and more specifically within France. Within the reins of his discoveries, his works on electricity are something important to write home about. Ben Franklin presented forward the “vitreous” and “resinous” electricity which were not distinguishable than the varied kinds of electrical fluids as this was the old name of electricity in those times. His work distinguished the electrical fluids as positive and negative, and what was even more significant was his discovery of the principle of conservation of charge. After a period of three years, Ben Franklin published a proposal for the experiment which was aimed at proving that lightning is indeed electricity when he made use of flying a kite within a storm. This had the capacity to become a lightning storm. It was in the year 1752 that Thomas-Francois Dalibard who hailed from France carried out Ben Franklin’s experiment when he employed a 12 meter tall iron rod which was in direct contrast with that of a kite and thus was able to extract electrical sparks from the clouds present in the storm. The same year saw Ben Franklin conducting his renowned kite experiment within Philadelphia where he met success with extracting sparks from clouds. However Ben Franklin’s experiment was not patented and thus the credit for the same did not go to him. Other experiments which were similar in nature to Ben Franklin’s included the ones by Joseph Priestley and Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann (Morgan, 2000). It was because of Ben Franklin’s experiment that the lightning rod was invented. Due to his immense work with electricity, he received recognition in the form of him being conferred with the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in the year 1753. Within a period of three years, in 1756, he became one of the few selected ones who were elected as the Fellow of the Society. What is even more appreciated of his work within such fields has been the naming of the cgs unit of electric charge after him, where one franklin (Fr) is equivalent to one statcoulomb. Ben Franklin had sheer commitment with the Puritan values as well as political aspirations which he had grown up with. He helped the American culture through his strict adherence towards civic work and publishing. He was able to pass on his values towards the American populace and the people who would follow in the generations that came after him. Since he literally had a passion for virtue, much of his business operations were based on this dictum. He believed in bringing forward his business ideologies on to the people who surrounded him and who formed as an essential part of his social domains. On the same footing, his autobiography penned down 13 of his most significant virtues. These include the virtues of temperance, the silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility. He did not make use of all these virtues all at the same time, rather he emphasized upon the virtues one after the other. As far as his business aspirations were concerned, even in his teenage days he seemed to have a liking for the same work realms. At the tender age of 17 years, he ran away to Philadelphia so that he could start in a new city. He worked for a number of printer shops in the new town which helped him to understand the nuances related with printing in essence. His satisfaction however did not come from the initial prospects that he worked for. He was convinced by the Pennsylvania Governor to go to London where he could apparently get hold of the equipment which was deemed as very pivotal for the establishment of another newspaper within Philadelphia. Later on, he worked as a typesetter at a printer’s shop within the Smithfield area of London. However, he returned to Philadelphia in 1726 where he got employed as a clerk with a merchant. He also worked as a shopkeeper and a bookkeeper within this business. In an year’s time, Ben Franklin coined the Junto which was a faction of like-minded and up and coming business artisans and tradesmen who wanted to improve their work realms while they formed an important part of the community at large (Fleming, 2007). This Junto started to become like a discussion group for the issues that cropped up within the society. What it did in essence was to give rise to a number of organizations within Philadelphia, which was seen as something of a noteworthy act in entirety. In 1728, Ben Franklin formed up a printing house which was in partnership with Hugh Meredith and thus became the publisher of a newspaper which was named as The Pennsylvania Gazette. This newspaper allowed him to have a forum for his own self where he vented out his feelings against different initiatives and local reforms. This was done through a number of essays and observations which were written during this era. He started to earn a great amount of respect during this while because he was proactive at cultivating a positive image of himself as being a hard working and intellectual individual. In the end, it would be fair to state that Ben Franklin was a personality in his own right. The manner in which he showcased his skills and abilities is something that is credited upon his shoulders. He died in 1790 at the age of 84 years. His funeral was attended by more than 20,000 people. His grave reads “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin” which was in accordance with his final will. His death has been discussed at length within the book ‘The Life of Benjamin Franklin’. He gave around 1,000 pounds to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia in trust so that interest for another 200 years was promised. His name has been attached to a number of things, most important of which include the State of Franklin, which remained as a short-lived state in the times of the American Revolutionary War. Also a number of landmarks in and around Philadelphia are named after Ben Franklin. These include the Franklin and Marshall College, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the Franklin Institute and so on. Works Cited Fleming, Thomas. The Perils of Peace: America’s Struggle for Survival. New York: Collins, 2007 McCrary, John. Chess and Benjamin Franklin – His Pioneering Contributions, 2009 Morgan, David. Benjamin Franklin: Champion of Generic Religion. The Historian, 2000 Read More