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Over several years, he worked to settle a tax dispute and other issues involving descendants of William Penn (1644-1718), the owners of the colony of Pennsylvania. In 1757, Franklin traveled to London as a representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, to which he was elected in 1751. Although his Albany Plan was rejected, it helped lay the groundwork for the Articles of Confederation, which became the first constitution of the United States when ratified in 1781. In 1754, at a meeting of colonial representatives in Albany, New York, Franklin proposed a plan for uniting the colonies under a national congress. Franklin also coined a number of electricity-related terms, including battery, charge and conductor. In 1752, he conducted his famous kite experiment and demonstrated that lightning is electricity. In the 1740s, he conducted experiments that contributed to the understanding of electricity, and invented the lightning rod, which protected buildings from fires caused by lightning. Retirement allowed him to concentrate on public service and also pursue more fully his longtime interest in science. In 1748, Franklin, then 42 years old, had expanded his printing business throughout the colonies and become successful enough to stop working. postage stamps, issued on July 1, 1847, featured images of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.) Benjamin Franklin's Inventions He held this position until November 1776, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law. In July 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Franklin the first postmaster general of the United States, giving him authority over all post offices from Massachusetts to Georgia.
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In this role he instituted various measures to improve mail service however, the British dismissed him from the job in 1774 because he was deemed too sympathetic to colonial interests. In 1737, the British appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia, and he went on to become, in 1753, joint postmaster general for all the American colonies.
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Additionally, Franklin was instrumental in the creation of the Academy of Philadelphia, a college which opened in 1751 and became known as the University of Pennsylvania in 1791.įranklin also was a key figure in the colonial postal system. Franklin also organized the Pennsylvania militia, raised funds to build a city hospital and spearheaded a program to pave and light city streets. public library until the 1850s), the city’s first fire company, a police patrol and the American Philosophical Society, a group devoted to the sciences and other scholarly pursuits. Starting in the 1730s, he helped establish a number of community organizations in Philadelphia, including a lending library (it was founded in 1731, a time when books weren’t widely available in the colonies, and remained the largest U.S. Benjamin Franklin and PhiladelphiaĪs Franklin’s printing business prospered, he became increasingly involved in civic affairs. William Franklin served as the last colonial governor of New Jersey, from 1763 to 1776, and remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution. Franklin had another son, William Franklin (c.
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Franklin and Read had a son, Francis Folger Franklin (1732-36), who died of smallpox at age 4, and a daughter, Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808). Read’s first husband had abandoned her however, due to bigamy laws, she and Franklin could not have an official wedding ceremony. 1705-74), the daughter of his former Philadelphia landlady, as his common-law wife. In 1730, Franklin began living with Deborah Read (c. Franklin was the eighth of Abiah and Josiah’s 10 offspring. Franklin’s mother was Abiah Folger (1667-1752) of Nantucket, Massachusetts, Josiah’s second wife. His father, Josiah Franklin (1657-1745), a native of England, was a candle and soap maker who married twice and had 17 children. Benjamin Franklin’s Early Yearsīenjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in colonial Boston. In 1787, in his final significant act of public service, he was a delegate to the convention that produced the U.S. He also negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War (1775-83). During the American Revolution, he served in the Second Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Franklin was deeply active in public affairs in his adopted city, where he helped launch a lending library, hospital and college and garnered acclaim for his experiments with electricity, among other projects. He went on to start a successful printing business in Philadelphia and grew wealthy. Born into a Boston family of modest means, Franklin had little formal education. One of the leading figures of early American history, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor and diplomat.