Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Essay Example

His stepmother gave birth to seven children, three in Ecton and four after they had immigrated to Boston. However, after the demise of his mother, his polygamous father married a second wife, Abiah Folger, who bore ten children, bringing the total number of siblings to seventeen. This was at a time when America was a colony of Great Britain. As a result of the abject poverty that had ravaged the British colonies during this time, and bearing in mind the many siblings in the family, Benjamin attended Boston Latin school, a clergy school for a couple of years and was forced to end his studies prematurely due to lack of money.

Contrary to this, his passion for acquisition of more knowledge, like all his brothers, grew by the day due to interest in books and the zeal for writing. Though his father had been against it from the start, he finally gave way after realizing his son’s undying enthusiasm for writing and the expense of college education, (Woodworth, 1). He finally took him to a school for writing and arithmetic where he really excelled in the former. Realizing he could not further his sons education, his father absorbed him into his tallow-chandler business newly acquired profession in New England.

This sharpened his guidance skills especially when they went to forays with the boys in the sea. His zeal for reading grew by the day. All little money he got was spent on books with some of his first collections being John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress and R. Burton's Historical Collections.(Woodworth, 3) The inception of a printing business by his brother James on his return to England further exposed him to a variety of books. He was made his apprentice and through this, he made many acquaintances like Mathew Adams, a resourceful businessperson, who exposed him to variety of books in his library collections, majorly poetry.

His writing skills improved immensely for example when he wrote his first poetry of The Lighthouse Tragedy .This was further enhanced by acquisition of the book, Spectator and the inception of his brothers first newspaper, New England Courant, which he secretly contributed to under the disguise of Mrs. Silence Do-good. These articles attracted a lot of publicity in town and he eventually broke ties with his brother after he discovered the popular correspondent was his brother (Woodworth, 3) His journey to Philadelphia saw him work in different printing shops where he nurtured the idea of starting his own printing firm.

With support from Sir William Keith, the then Pennsylvania governor, to travel to London to acquire printing gear, he would later establish the notion as unworthy of consideration (Woodworth, 21). However, he made several acquaintances like Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading (Woodworth, 69). With the absence of forthcoming prospects, Ben went back to Philadelphia and established, together with other aspirants and tradesmen, a group called Junto with the noble intention of bettering their community.

This was done through excellent ideas that led to building of the library company of Philadelphia (Woodworth, 188). The pooling of enough resources from the junta group saw him begin his life of political lobbyism. Together with his trusted associate, Hugh Meredith, they established their first printing house in Pennsylvania. This led to the publication of their first newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. Through his diligence and unremitting obsession for freedom