The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Franklin, Benjamin
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 386525
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Wiretap Electronic Text Archive
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: franklin.txt
subject: time
subject: business
subject: man
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subject: etext
subject: public
subject: domain
subject: franklin
subject: benjamin
subject: autobiography
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
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sort title: Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin, The
full text: [pg/etext94/bfaut10.txt] The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin July, 1994 [Etext #148] This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LLD P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY, NEW YORK (1909) INTRODUCTORY NOTE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Courant." To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October, 1723. He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding Keith's promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a position in his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac" for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation. In 1758, the year in which he ceases writing for the Almanac, he printed in it "Father Abraham's Sermon," now regarded as the most famous piece of literature produced in Colonial America. Meantime Franklin was concerning himself more and more with public affairs. He set forth a scheme for an Academy, which was taken up later and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania; an…