The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791)

Man, this got DRY at the end! Who would have thought that the life of a Founding Father would get LESS interesting as time went on!? Frankly (joke intended), I wanted to hear more about "Young Ben"!

The last half of the book followed this basic format: "So then I wrote a bill for a new xyz. The people applauded the bill. I didn't think it was very good, but they all liked it. The bill became a law in 17xx; now, all of the surrounding cities have the same law."

Still, the earlier bits are certainly worth a read. Great insight into the thought life of Mr. $100. ( )

Volume I read included Poor Richard's Almanac as well as a small selection off letters. ( )

One extra star for the man Benjamin Franklin was... This autobiography is not complete, and, disappointingly, it does not tell the story of his scientific pursuits. But, it gives a clear picture of a totally self-made giant of a man, his thoughts, his philosophy and his failings. Being not initiated in the history of America and the concept of colonies, I was a bit bored reading the political part of this book. There are a lot of things to learn from this work by a true legend. ( )

Everyone should read this book. The narrative of Benjamin Franklin’s life is full of adventure, including leaving Boston to make his fortune as a printer in Philadelphia, two extended stays in London, involvement in Pennsylvania politics, scientific experiments and participation in the French and Indian Wars. (The autobiography ends before the American Revolution). Franklin’s observations on colonial life are an important source for information on colonial America and its relationship with Great Britain. The insights on how Franklin achieved his success as a printer and politician provide practical advice that still resonates today. Even his description of his efforts to discipline himself to live a life of virtue and hard work is not only still relevant but also contributes to the overall pleasure to be derived from reading this autobiography.

Franklin addresses his autobiography to his son, and indeed many people would benefit from reading the book when they start out in life. He lays out his daily effort to master thirteen virtues in which every day’s successes and failures were recorded on a chart listing the virtues and every day of the week. He acknowledges that when a friend pointed out that pride was one of his faults, he added humility to his list of virtues to be pursued. His total list consisted of the following twelve virtues in addition to humility: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility and chastity. Concerning order (“Let all your things have their place; let each part of your business have its time“), he bemoans that he was never able to teach himself to keep his papers neat and tidy.

More important than his schema of virtues is the wisdom to be derived from numerous examples of practical choices made in his political and business life. For example, Franklin tells the story of a man in the Pennsylvania Assembly who sought to defeat Franklin’s reappointment as clerk to the Assembly because the man had another candidate he was backing. Fortunately for Franklin, the man’s efforts fell short and Franklin was reappointed. Rather than treat this man henceforth as an enemy, however, Franklin, knowing the gentleman had a valuable collection of books, asked the man if he could borrow a particular book he knew was in the collection. The man was very happy to lend the book to Franklin, and became a close friend who did other favors for Franklin in the future. Franklin draws the lesson that a person who does a kindness for another person is much more likely to do additional kindnesses for that person in the future, while a person who does a kindness for another person is much less likely to receive a kindness in return.

He identifies several actions which he labels “errata.” These include his failure to correspond from London with his future wife, who married someone else and only became Franklin’s wife much later after her first husband died. He also thinks it was a mistake for him when starting out to accept a large sum of money from a friend of his father’s, which because he lent it on to friends who never paid him back he himself was not in a position to pay back, although he was fortunate that his father’s friend did not ask for the money until many years later when Franklin did have the resources to pay.

Franklin’s formal education ended in grade school and his father than began to seek an apprenticeship position for him. (He wanted to go to sea, which his father strongly opposed, and the initial plans for him to become a cleric fell through.) He ended up as an apprentice to one of his elder brothers who was a printer in Boston. (Benjamin was the 10th child in his family.) On moral grounds, he became a vegetarian. Later he discloses that he rationalized eating fish when he saw that the fish to be eaten had in their stomachs smaller fish they had devoured.

Franklin loved to read and pursued his own self education. He learned foreign languages and Latin. (One of his recommendations for education is that students should study Latin after learning a romance language rather than before.) To improve his writing, he would take brief notes of articles in the Spectator magazine, and then rewrite the articles in his own language. He would then compare his writing to the original.

He also loved to discuss issues and ideas with contemporaries. At first he would argue his positions forcefully, but soon learned that this approach was not persuasive. He then adopted the Socratic method and reveled in his ability to put his interlocutors into Socratic dilemmas. He was brought up as a Dissenter but reading books critical of Deism convinced him that Deism was the proper attitude toward God.

On his first stay in London, he got a job with a printer. He lived on Little Britain near Clerkenwell, where the printers were located. He moved to Duke Street closer to the West End when he changed printers. Before returning to America, he gave some swimming lessons (in the Thames!) to sons of aristocrats and concluded he could have made a career out of this. He would swim from Chelsea to Blackfriar’s.

While he was making his way and his fortune in Philadelphia as a printer, he also became involved in a variety of nonbusiness activities. He and his friends formed a discussion group, called the Junto, and these efforts eventually led to subscriptions to start the first library in America and to found a school which eventually became the University of Pennsylvania. He learned early on not to put himself forward as the founder of a new enterprise but rather to create it as an initiative of a number of friends. By not permitting one’s vanity to seek to raise one’s reputation above one’s friends, he found, it was much easier to get general consensus and financial support for new initiatives because a group of individuals could take the credit.

By making his annual Poor Richard’s Almanac entertaining and useful, he “reaped considerable profit” from its sales. He was particularly proud of his newspaper. In a discussion that reminds us of debates concerning the role of free speech in social media today, he states the following:

“In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stagecoach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as they please to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing the manifest injustice.”

During the French and Indian War, he assisted General Braddock in obtaining wagons from Pennsylvania farmers, even though the farmers required Franklin guarantee compensation if the wagons were not returned. General Loudoun, Braddock’s successor put off paying Franklin for a long time, but fortunately he was paid shortly before the guarantee would have been exercised. At this time he made his second stay in London. He noticed how dirt would accumulate in the streets and then become mud in the rains. He came up with a proposal for keeping the streets clean, based on having a drain in the middle of the street. He also developed in Philadelphia an efficient method to operate street gas lights that he recommended be adopted in London.

He relates how initially his discoveries in electricity were overlooked by the British but were acclaimed by the French. He favored teaching young women the basics of business accounting because widows who outlived their husbands engaged in business would need such knowledge to protect their interests.

It is a pity that the autobiography ends before the American Revolution, but apparently his later years are covered by correspondence and other papers. He also had a falling out with his son William during the revolution. William, who was illegitimate, became a loyalist rather than supporting the patriot cause.

Franklin’s autobiography is one of the most important primary sources for historians of the period at the same time that it is a readable and interesting narrative of part of the life of one of the most important founding fathers. The full richness of this autobiography cannot be adequately summarized in a review without repeating the autobiography itself. Start reading it (in my edition it was only 114 pages long) and see if it catches you within the first ten pages. ( )

Azt gondolná az ember, hogy ha valakinek olyan érdekes az élete mint Benjamin Franklinnek, akkor az önéletrajza is hasonlóan érdekes lesz, de sajnos nem. A könyv több részből áll, az elejét még 1771-ben írta Franklin, a végét 1790-ben, de hát ugye közbejött a függetlenségi háború, nem volt idő írni. És sajnos befejezni sem sikerült, mert hamarabb meghalt a szerző, így az utolsó évtizedekig (melyek a legérdekesebb részek lennének) nem jutunk el. Gyerekként, illetve fiatalként pedig még nem volt annyira érdekes Franklin élete. Persze jó olvasni, hogy egy könyveket szerető, jó szervezőképességű fiatal hogyan jut előre, de ez azért nem annyira izgalmas.

A tudományos részekről elég kevés szó esik, egyszer csak számomra meglepő módon megemlíti a szerző, hogy épített egy új hatékony kályhát (Franklin-kályha) de nem igazán láttam ennek előzményeit. Az elektromossággal kapcsolatos kutatásokról sem esik túl sok szó, és akkor sem megy bele a részletekbe a szerző.

Számomra legérdekesebbek azok a részek voltak, ahol arról írt Franklin, hogyan jöttek létre a vezetésével önszerveződő módon érdekes intézmények. ( )