Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 (Old Style January 6, 1705) and died on April 17, 1790. He was an American polymath, meaning he had many talents and interests. He was a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Franklin was one of the most influential thinkers of his time and a Founding Father of the United States. He helped write and sign the Declaration of Independence. He also became the first postmaster general of the United States.
Franklin was born in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the largest city in the American colonies. At age 23, he published The Pennsylvania Gazette. He also wrote Poor Richard's Almanack under the name "Richard Saunders." After 1767, he worked with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that criticized British laws and policies. Franklin helped start the Academy and College of Philadelphia, which later became the University of Pennsylvania. He also organized the American Philosophical Society and became its president in 1769. In 1753, he was appointed deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies, which allowed him to create the first national communication network.
Franklin was active in community, colonial, and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. He became a hero in North America when he helped the British Parliament repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. As a diplomat, he was the first U.S. ambassador to France and helped improve relations between the United States and France. His work was important in gaining French support for the American Revolution. From 1785 to 1788, he served as President of Pennsylvania. Between 1735 and the 1750s, Franklin owned at least seven enslaved people and advertised enslaved individuals for sale in his newspaper. However, by the late 1750s, he began opposing slavery and supported the education and rights of African Americans.
As a scientist, Franklin studied electricity, which made him a key figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics. He also mapped and named the Gulf Stream current. Franklin invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the glass harmonica, and the Franklin stove. He helped create many civic organizations, including the Library Company, the University of Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia's first fire department. Franklin earned the title "The First American" for his efforts to unite the American colonies. He was the only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the U.S. Constitution. Franklin is often called "the most accomplished American of his age" for shaping the type of society the United States would become.
Franklin's achievements in science, politics, and his role as a Founding Father have made him a celebrated figure for over 200 years. He is honored on the $100 bill and in the names of many towns, schools, and companies. His more than 30,000 letters and documents are collected in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. A French official, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, once said of Franklin: "Eripuit fulmen cœlo, mox sceptra tyrannis" ("He snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants").
Ancestry
Benjamin Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, soaper, and candlemaker. Josiah Franklin was born in Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on December 23, 1657, to Thomas Franklin and Jane White. Benjamin's father and all four of his grandparents were born in England.
Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, around 1677 in Ecton and moved to Boston with her in 1683. They had three children before moving to Boston and four after. After Anne Child passed away, Josiah married Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689, in the Old South Meeting House by Reverend Samuel Willard. They had ten children together. Benjamin, their eighth child, was Josiah Franklin's fifteenth child overall and his tenth and final son.
Benjamin Franklin's mother, Abiah, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and Mary Morrell Folger, a former indentured servant. Mary Folger came from a Puritan family that was among the first Pilgrims to move to Massachusetts for religious freedom. Her family sailed to Boston in 1635 after King Charles I of England began persecuting Puritans. Peter Folger was "the sort of rebel destined to transform colonial America." As clerk of the court, he was arrested on February 10, 1676, and jailed on February 19 for his inability to pay bail. He remained in jail for more than a year and a half.
Early life and education
Benjamin Franklin was born on Milk Street in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, on January 17, 1706. He was baptized at the Old South Meeting House in Boston. As a child living near the Charles River, Franklin remembered being "generally the leader among the boys."
Franklin’s father wanted him to study with religious leaders but could only afford to send him to school for two years. Franklin attended Boston Latin School but did not graduate. He continued learning by reading many books. Although his parents considered a career in the church for him, his schooling ended when he was ten years old. He worked for his father for a time, and at age 12, he became an apprentice to his brother James, a printer. James taught Franklin how to print. When Benjamin was 15, James started The New-England Courant, the third newspaper in Boston.
When Franklin was not allowed to write a letter for the newspaper, he used the name "Silence Dogood," pretending to be a middle-aged woman. The letters he wrote under this name were published and became widely discussed. James and the readers did not know the letters were written by Benjamin. James was upset when he discovered his younger brother was the secret writer. Franklin supported free speech early in life. When his brother was jailed in 1722 for printing material that criticized the governor, Franklin took over the newspaper. He wrote, quoting Cato’s Letters, "Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech." Franklin left his apprenticeship without his brother’s permission and became a fugitive.
At age 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia, seeking a fresh start. When he arrived, he worked in several printing shops but was not happy with the jobs. After a few months, while working in one shop, Pennsylvania’s governor, Sir William Keith, encouraged Franklin to go to London to get equipment for starting another newspaper in Philadelphia. Franklin discovered Keith’s promises were false. He worked as a typesetter in a printer’s shop in what is now the Lady Chapel of the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great in London, which had been turned into a secular building. Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 with help from Thomas Denham, an English merchant who had returned to England and employed Franklin as a clerk, shopkeeper, and bookkeeper.
In 1727, at age 21, Franklin started the Junto, a group of people with similar goals who wanted to improve themselves and their community. The Junto was a place to discuss important issues and later inspired many organizations in Philadelphia. The Junto was modeled after English coffeehouses, which Franklin knew were centers for sharing Enlightenment ideas.
Reading was a favorite activity for the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library using their own books. Franklin suggested a subscription library, where members would pool money to buy books for everyone to read. This idea led to the Library Company of Philadelphia, which Franklin helped start in 1731.
After Denham died, Franklin returned to his printing work. In 1728, he partnered with Hugh Meredith to set up a printing house. The next year, he became the publisher of The Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper in Philadelphia. The Gazette gave Franklin a way to write about local reforms and share his ideas. Over time, his writings and his image as a hardworking and intelligent young man earned him respect. Even after becoming a famous scientist and statesman, Franklin always signed his letters as "B. Franklin, Printer."
In 1732, Franklin published the first German-language newspaper in America—Die Philadelphische Zeitung—but it failed after one year because other German newspapers quickly became popular. Franklin also printed religious books in German for the Moravian community. He often visited Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he stayed at the Moravian Sun Inn. In a 1751 pamphlet about population growth in the colonies, Franklin referred to Pennsylvania Germans as "Palatine Boors" and called "Blacks and Tawneys" a threat to colonial society. He later removed these phrases from later editions, but his views may have contributed to his political loss in 1764.
According to Ralph Frasca, Franklin saw the printing press as a tool to teach colonial Americans about moral virtue. Frasca argues Franklin believed this was a service to God, as he viewed moral actions as a way to honor God. Despite his own mistakes, Franklin felt he was uniquely qualified to guide others in morality. He worked to influence American society by creating a network of printers from the Carolinas to New England. This network became the first newspaper chain. Franklin believed the press had a duty to serve the public.
When Franklin settled in Philadelphia around 1730, the city had only two weak newspapers: The American Weekly Mercury and The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, which included weekly excerpts from Chambers’s Universal Dictionary. Franklin improved the Instructor by turning it into The Pennsylvania Gazette. The Gazette became his main newspaper, where he wrote satirical essays and used humor. Franklin adapted his writing style from models like Addison’s Spectator and the Tatler, using characters such as "The Busy-Body" and "Cretico" to comment on society.
Franklin had mixed results in his plan to create a network of newspapers across the colonies to spread ideas and make money. He supported over two dozen printers in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and the Caribbean. By 1753, eight of the 15 English-language newspapers in the colonies were published by Franklin or his partners. He started in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1731. After the second editor died, the widow Elizabeth Timothy took over and made the newspaper successful. She was one of the first women printers in the American colonies. Franklin had a close business relationship with Elizabeth and her son Peter Timothy, who later took over the newspaper.
Public life
In 1736, Franklin started the Union Fire Company, one of the first groups of volunteer firefighters in America. That same year, he printed new money for New Jersey using new ways to stop fake money. He also began his political work, especially as Chief Clerk of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, a job he held until 1751. Throughout his life, Franklin supported the use of paper money. In 1729, he wrote a book called A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, and his printer made money. He helped create successful money experiments in the Middle Colonies that stopped prices from falling too much without causing prices to rise too quickly. In 1766, he spoke to the British House of Commons about the importance of paper money.
As Franklin grew older, he became more interested in helping others. In 1743, he planned a school, charity school, and college in Philadelphia, but the person he wanted to lead it refused. He put his ideas aside until 1749, when he published a pamphlet called Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania. He became president of the Academy in 1749, and the school opened in 1751.
In 1743, Franklin created the American Philosophical Society to help scientists share their discoveries. He also began studying electricity, which would become a major part of his work for the rest of his life.
During King George's War, Franklin formed a militia called the Association for General Defense because city leaders had decided not to protect Philadelphia. He raised money to build earthwork defenses and buy weapons. The largest defense was the "Association Battery" with 50 guns.
In 1747, Franklin retired from printing and started other businesses. He partnered with his foreman, David Hall, and received half the shop's profits for 18 years. This arrangement gave him time to study and make new discoveries.
Franklin became involved in Philadelphia politics and quickly advanced. In 1748, he was chosen as a councilman. In 1749, he became a justice of the peace. In 1751, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. In 1753, he was named deputy postmaster-general of British North America. He improved the postal system, making sure mail was sent weekly.
In 1751, Franklin and Thomas Bond got permission from the Pennsylvania legislature to create the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the colonies. In 1752, Franklin started the Philadelphia Contributionship, the first homeowner's insurance company in the colonies.
Between 1750 and 1753, Franklin, Samuel Johnson, and William Smith worked together to create a new model for American colleges. Franklin helped print and promote a textbook called Elementa Philosophica by Samuel Johnson. In 1755, the College of Philadelphia opened. Later, it became the University of Pennsylvania and influenced the creation of the United States' founding documents, like the Declaration of Independence.
In 1754, Franklin led Pennsylvania's group at the Albany Congress, where leaders from different colonies met to improve relations with Native Americans and defend against the French. Franklin proposed a plan to unite the colonies, though it was not accepted. Parts of his plan later appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
In 1753, Harvard and Yale gave Franklin honorary master of arts degrees. In 1756, he received another from the College of William & Mary. That same year, he organized the Pennsylvania Militia and used Tun Tavern to recruit soldiers to fight Native American uprisings.
Franklin was a well-known printer and was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, a job he held until 1753. He and William Hunter became deputy postmasters-general of British North America, the first people to hold that position. Franklin managed mail service for areas from Pennsylvania to Newfoundland. He improved the postal system, making mail delivery faster and more efficient. By 1761, the colonial post office made its first profits.
After the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Franklin helped expand mail service between Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, and New York. He spent much of his time in England (1757–1762 and 1764–1774) but was dismissed in 1774 because of his support for the American Revolution.
In 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the United States Post Office and named Franklin its first postmaster general. He had worked as a postmaster for many years and was chosen for the job because of his experience. He returned from England and led a committee to create a postal system. The committee’s report was approved, and Franklin became the first postmaster general under the Continental Congress. His apprentice, William Goddard, felt Franklin deserved the position, and Franklin appointed Goddard to a key role in the postal system.
Death
Benjamin Franklin had obesity during his middle age and older years, which caused several health problems, including gout, a condition that worsened as he aged. He was in poor health during the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 and was rarely seen in public after that until his death.
Franklin died from a pleuritic attack at his home in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790, at the age of 84. His last reported words, shared with his daughter, were, "a dying man can do nothing easy," after she suggested he change his position in bed to lie on his side for easier breathing. Franklin’s death is described in the book The Life of Benjamin Franklin, which includes an account from John Paul Jones.
Approximately 20,000 people attended Franklin’s funeral, after which he was buried in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. When news of his death reached the Constitutional Assembly in Revolutionary France, they declared a three-day mourning period, and memorial services were held in his honor across the country.
In 1728, at age 22, Franklin wrote what he hoped would be his own epitaph. However, as stated in his final will, his actual grave simply reads, "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin."
Inventions and scientific inquiries
Benjamin Franklin was a very talented inventor. He created many useful items, including the lightning rod, Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. He did not patent his inventions. In his autobiography, he wrote, "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
Franklin, along with his contemporary Leonhard Euler, was one of the few major scientists who supported Christiaan Huygens's wave theory of light. Most scientists at the time believed Isaac Newton's corpuscular theory of light. It was not until Thomas Young's famous slit experiment in 1803 that most scientists accepted Huygens's wave theory.
In the 1740s, Franklin began studying electricity after meeting Archibald Spencer, who used static electricity in his shows. Franklin proposed that "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity were not different types of "electrical fluid," but the same fluid under different pressures. He was the first to label them as positive and negative, replacing the older terms. He also discovered the principle of conservation of charge. In 1748, Franklin built a multiple plate capacitor, which he called an "electrical battery." This device used glass plates between lead plates, connected by wires.
Franklin wanted to find practical uses for electricity. In 1749, he planned a demonstration where a turkey would be killed by electric shock and roasted on an electrical spit. He noted that the turkeys cooked this way were very tender. During one experiment, Franklin was shocked by a pair of Leyden jars, causing numbness in his arms that lasted for a day. He later said he was ashamed of this mistake.
Franklin briefly studied electrotherapy, including the use of electric baths. His work helped make this field more widely known. In 1753, he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his work with electricity. In 1756, he became one of the few 18th-century Americans elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The unit of electric charge in the CGS system is named after him: one franklin (Fr) equals one statcoulomb.
Franklin advised Harvard University on acquiring new electrical equipment after a fire destroyed its original collection in 1764. The collection he helped assemble later became part of the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, now displayed in Harvard's Science Center.
Franklin proposed an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm. In 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using an iron rod instead of a kite and extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. Franklin may have performed his famous kite experiment in Philadelphia on June 15, 1752. He described the experiment in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, without mentioning that he did it himself. This account was shared with the Royal Society and later published in Philosophical Transactions. Joseph Priestley added more details in his 1767 book on electricity. Franklin was careful to stand on an insulator and stay dry under a roof to avoid electric shock. Others, like Georg Wilhelm Richmann in Russia, were electrocuted during similar experiments.
Franklin warned about the dangers of lightning experiments and suggested safer methods, such as using the concept of electrical ground. He did not fly a kite and wait for lightning to strike, as this would have been dangerous. Instead, he used the kite to collect electric charge from a storm cloud, proving that lightning is electrical.
Franklin's experiments led to the invention of the lightning rod. He found that sharp metal rods could discharge electricity from clouds at a greater distance than smooth ones. He suggested attaching these rods to buildings to protect them from lightning. After testing his idea, lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in 1752.
Although Franklin is famous for his kite experiments, he also used kites to pull people and ships across waterways. George Pocock wrote about being inspired by Franklin's use of kite power for transportation.
Franklin discovered a principle of refrigeration by noticing that a wet shirt in a breeze kept him cooler than a dry one on a hot day. To study this, he and John Hadley experimented with wetting a mercury thermometer with ether and using bellows to evaporate it. The thermometer's temperature dropped to 7°F (-14°C), while the room temperature stayed at 65°F (18°C). Franklin wrote that it was possible to freeze a person on a warm summer day.
In 1761, Franklin wrote to Mary Stevenson about experiments showing that darker clothes absorb more heat from sunlight than lighter ones. He tested this by placing colored cloth in the snow on a sunny day and found that black cloth sank deepest, melting the most snow.
According to Michael Faraday, Franklin's experiments on the non-conduction of ice are notable. However, the law of how heat affects the conduction of non-conductors is not credited to Franklin. In 1836, Franklin's great-grandson, Alexander Dallas Bache, reported on this topic.
Views on religion, morality, and slavery
Benjamin Franklin, like other supporters of republicanism, believed that a new republic could only succeed if its people practiced virtue. Throughout his life, he studied how civic and personal virtue could be expressed, as seen in Poor Richard's Almanac. He believed organized religion was important for keeping people moral, but he rarely attended religious services. When Franklin met Voltaire in Paris and asked him to bless his grandson, Voltaire responded in English, "God and Liberty," saying this was the only proper blessing for Franklin's grandson.
Franklin's parents were devout Puritans. His family attended the Old South Church in Boston, a liberal Puritan congregation. Franklin was baptized there in 1706. His father, a poor chandler, owned a book called Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good, written by Puritan preacher Cotton Mather, which Franklin often credited as a key influence. Years later, Franklin wrote to Mather's son that he believed his usefulness to society came from reading this book. Franklin's first pen name, Silence Dogood, honored both the book and a famous sermon by Mather. The book encouraged forming voluntary groups to help society. Franklin learned about creating such groups from Mather, but his leadership skills made him a major force in making voluntarism a lasting part of American culture.
In 1728, Franklin shared his beliefs in a published work. By 1771, he no longer accepted key Puritan ideas about salvation or the divinity of Jesus. He called himself a deist in his autobiography, though he still considered himself a Christian. He believed in a God who was the source of morality and who played a role in history, such as in America's independence.
During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin tried to suggest daily prayers for the nation, but the idea received little support and was not voted on.
Franklin admired George Whitefield, an evangelical minister during the First Great Awakening. Though Franklin did not agree with Whitefield's theology, he respected his focus on worship through good deeds. Franklin published Whitefield's sermons and journals, which earned him money and helped spread the Great Awakening.
When Franklin stopped attending church, he wrote in his autobiography that he had grown up with Puritan values like equality, education, hard work, honesty, and community spirit. These values, along with his belief in ethical responsibility and kindness, became central to American culture. Historian Thomas Kidd noted that Franklin promoted these ideas even as he rejected traditional Christian beliefs.
During the Enlightenment, classical authors taught that republics relied on social hierarchies, with kings, aristocrats, and commoners. Many believed English freedoms depended on balance between these classes. However, Puritanism and the Great Awakening challenged these ideas by teaching that all people are equal and that morality, not class, determines a person's worth. Franklin, influenced by Puritanism and the Great Awakening, rejected religious salvation ideas but supported the idea of equal democracy.
Franklin's dedication to teaching these values came from his Puritan upbringing, which emphasized developing virtue in individuals and communities. These values became a key part of his identity and helped shape American culture. Historian Max Weber saw Franklin's writings as a key part of the Protestant ethic, which contributed to the rise of capitalism.
Franklin respected all religions and supported religious freedom. In his autobiography, he wrote that he contributed to building places of worship for any group, regardless of their beliefs. He helped create a nation that drew strength from its religious diversity. Evangelical revivalists like Whitefield promoted religious freedom, calling it an "inalienable right." Franklin supported this by helping build a hall in Philadelphia where people of all beliefs could speak. Franklin's focus on morality and civic virtue, rather than religious dogma, made him a leader in promoting tolerance. He wrote a story called A Parable Against Persecution, which imagined God teaching Abraham about tolerance. In 1774, Franklin attended the first Unitarian congregation in England, a move that challenged religious laws at the time.
Although his parents wanted him to become a minister, Franklin became a deist as a young man, believing that God's truths could be found in nature and reason. In a 1725 pamphlet, he rejected Christian dogma, but later claimed he believed God was "all wise, all good, and all powerful." He argued that religious beliefs should be judged by their effects on people's behavior. After seeing moral failures in himself and others, Franklin realized that deism alone might not be enough to encourage virtue, and he believed organized religion could help. Historian Ralph Frasca noted that Franklin's later views could be seen as a form of non-denominational Christianity, even though he did not believe Jesus was divine.
Scholar Thomas Kidd wrote that Franklin saw true religion as personal morality and civic virtue, not traditional Christianity. He eventually believed in a "moralized Christianity" without strict doctrines. Historian David Morgan called Franklin a proponent of "generic religion," as he prayed to "Powerful Goodness" and referred to God as "the infinite." John Adams described Franklin as a reflection of people's own religious beliefs, noting that different groups saw him as part of their faiths.
Views on the future of technology
In a letter to Joseph Priestley, dated February 8, 1780, Franklin believed that in the future "all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard." In the same letter, Franklin also wrote:
In 1773, Franklin imagined a technology similar to cryonics.
Interests and activities
Benjamin Franklin played the violin, the harp, and the guitar. He also wrote music, including a string quartet in the early classical style. While in London, he created a better version of the glass harmonica. In this improved version, the glasses spin on a shaft, and the player keeps their fingers still, instead of moving the glasses. He worked with a London glassblower named Charles James to make this instrument. Instruments based on Franklin's design soon spread to other parts of Europe. Joseph Haydn, who admired Franklin's progressive ideas, owned a glass harmonica. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven wrote music for Franklin's glass harmonica. Gaetano Donizetti used the instrument in the opera Il castello di Kenilworth (1821) for the song "Par che mi dica ancora," and Camille Saint-Saëns used it in The Carnival of the Animals (1886). Richard Strauss included the glass harmonica in his opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (1917). Many other composers also used Franklin's instrument.
Benjamin Franklin loved playing chess. He played chess by about 1733, making him the first known chess player by name in the American colonies. His essay titled "The Morals of Chess," published in Columbian Magazine in December 1786, was the second known writing about chess in America. This essay praised chess and described rules for proper behavior during the game. It was widely copied and translated. Franklin and a friend used chess to learn Italian. The winner of each game could assign a task, such as memorizing parts of Italian grammar, to the loser before their next meeting.
Franklin played chess more often against stronger opponents during his time as a civil servant and diplomat in England, where chess was more popular than in America. He improved his skills by playing against more experienced players. He regularly visited Old Slaughter's Coffee House in London for chess and socializing, where he made many important connections. While in Paris, both as a visitor and later as an ambassador, he visited the famous Café de la Régence, a place where France's top chess players met. No records of Franklin's chess games remain, so it is not possible to determine how skilled he was by today's standards.
In 1999, Franklin was added to the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame. The Franklin Mercantile Chess Club in Philadelphia, the second oldest chess club in the United States, is named in his honor.
Legacy
Benjamin Franklin left £1,000 (about $4,400 at that time, or about $125,000 in 2021 dollars) to each of the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. The money was to be kept in trust for 200 years so that the interest could grow. The trust began in 1785 when a French mathematician named Charles-Joseph Mathon de la Cour, who admired Franklin, wrote a humorous version of Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack called Fortunate Richard. In this story, the main character left five lots of 100 livres in his will to grow over one, two, three, four, or five centuries. Franklin, who was 79 years old at the time, wrote to thank Mathon de la Cour for the idea and decided to leave £1,000 to Boston and Philadelphia.
By 1990, Franklin’s trust in Philadelphia had grown to more than $2,000,000 (~$4.23 million in 2024). The money had been used to give loans to local residents, mostly for home mortgages from 1940 to 1990. When the trust ended, Philadelphia used the funds to create scholarships for high school students. Meanwhile, Franklin’s trust in Boston had grown to almost $5,000,000. Part of the money was used to start a trade school that later became the Franklin Institute of Boston. Eventually, the entire fund was used to support this institute.
In 1787, a group of important ministers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, proposed creating a new college named after Franklin. Franklin donated £200 to help build Franklin College, which is now called Franklin & Marshall College.
Franklin is the only person who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Treaty of Alliance with France in 1778, the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and the U.S. Constitution in 1787. Because of his major role in the nation’s early history, he is sometimes jokingly called “the only president of the United States who was never president of the United States.”
Franklin’s image appears often. Since 1914, his face has been on American $100 bills. From 1948 to 1963, his portrait was on the half-dollar coin. He also appeared on a $50 bill and several versions of the $100 bill from 1914 and 1918. Franklin’s likeness is also on the $1,000 Series EE savings bond.
On April 12, 1976, as part of a bicentennial celebration, Congress dedicated a 20-foot-tall marble statue of Franklin at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute as the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller presided over the ceremony. Many of Franklin’s personal items are displayed there. In London, his home at 36 Craven Street, the only surviving former residence of Franklin, was marked with a blue plaque and opened to the public as the Benjamin Franklin House. In 1998, workers restoring the building found the remains of six children and four adults hidden beneath the house. A total of 15 bodies were recovered. The Friends of Benjamin Franklin House, the group responsible for the restoration, believe the remains were placed there by William Hewson, who lived in the house for two years and built a small anatomy school nearby. They note that Franklin likely knew about Hewson’s work but probably did not take part in any dissections, as he was more interested in physics than medicine.
Franklin has appeared on U.S. postage stamps many times. His image, as the first postmaster general of the United States, is on more U.S. postage stamps than any other American except George Washington. He appeared on the first U.S. postage stamp issued in 1847. From 1908 to 1923, the U.S. Post Office released a series of stamps called the Washington–Franklin Issues, which featured Washington and Franklin many times over 14 years. This was the longest series of stamps in U.S. postal history. However, Franklin only appears on a few commemorative stamps. Some of the best images of Franklin are found on the engravings on U.S. postage stamps.