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Course: The Aspen Institute > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Benjamin Franklin- An introduction to Benjamin Franklin
- Benjamin Franklin becomes a writer
- Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard's Almanac
- Benjamin Franklin the civic leader
- Benjamin Franklin the inventor
- Benjamin Franklin as diplomat
- Takeaways from Benjamin Franklin's life
- Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin becomes a writer
In this video, Sal and Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson discuss Benjamin Franklin the writer. Created by Aspen Institute.
Want to join the conversation?
- How much power did his writings have, and does the brother find out that Benjamin was the actual author?(9 votes)
- They weren't that powerful, but lots of people paid attention to what he wrote.
Yes, his brother did eventually find out.(7 votes)
- The last couple of video touch on Ben's rebellion and escape from his original obligation as his older brother's apprentice. I was just curious how, in this specific situation or even just during this time period in general, an apprenticeship would function? I know that it was kind of like a form of indentured servitude, but in comparison to a modern practice, would this be kind like an unpaid internship of sorts? I'm just wondering if the apprentice received any sort of benefit upon completion of his service such as credentials or experience to work in this type of trade on his own or if he was just spending those years wasting his life away working for nothing. Not sure if this fully makes sense or not the way I've written it but if someone could answer my question that would be greatly appreciated! :)(7 votes)
- Technically an apprenticeship was the exact same thing as an being indentured, only under a different name.
No, it wouldn't quite be like an internship, it would be more like free medical school plus an unpaid internship.
Often the only benefit when an apprentice "graduated" was that he could often find a job with his previous master, instead of creating his own business or looking around town for another employer. When an apprentice had finished his pre-determined years of apprenticeship, he generally was competent if not a master at his trade.(4 votes)
- how old was Benjamin Franklin when he died?(4 votes)
- How old was franklin when the revolution started?(4 votes)
- i know this sounds like a stupid question but does Apprenticeship still exist or has it been wiped out(3 votes)
- Did Benjamin Franklin teach himself how to read or did someone else teach him?(1 vote)
- According to the first chapter of his autobiography, he was sent to Grammar school for three quarters of the school year and put into another school for one year to learn how to write which he says ".. I Acquired fair writing pretty soon..."
He was only in those schools from age 8 to 10 and was taken out from school because his father needed help in his trade. He writes "Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errand, etc."(1 vote)
- How did Ben Franklin manage to give the essays to his brother?(2 votes)
- If he was against Absolute power ,but at the same time a ambassador of the colonies to the King of England? Then after ambassador to England to keep the Empire together ,Then go ahead and help the Revolution ? did he go because he was paid well,even though it clearly goes against his will as stated when he used the fictional character for his essays ....Or did he want freedom but not through war and bloodshed ?(3 votes)
- Freedom wasn't the original idea. At that time people were used to the rule of Monarchs and the benefits that came with being part of the dominant British Empire. Also, as you mentioned, freedom often comes with war and bloodshed and it was the American Colonial Legislature (Ben Franklin aswell) that wanted to resolve the issues by receiving more "Representation" within the British Empire for the American people. When it became clear that the British would not give Americans equal representation he became a revolutionary.
Also, he was a wealthy businessman so i doubt he became an ambassador for the money.
Hope that helps :)(4 votes)
- Does anyone know why he picked the name Silence Dogood?(2 votes)
- Because he was silently doing good with the article.(1 vote)
- did ben write on of the constitusion(1 vote)
- He was one of the Founding Fathers who helped contribute to the Constitution's creation and he was one of the signers, so yes he wrote on the Constitution.(2 votes)
Video transcript
Voiceover: So we're pretty
familiar with the things Benjamin Franklin did later in his life, but let's just start with the beginning. Where was he born, what
was his childhood like? Voiceover: He was born in Boston in 1706, he was the tenth son
of a Puritan immigrant, and as the tenth son of a Puritan, if you've studied the
Puritans or your Bible, you know your supposed to be your father's tithe to the Lord. His father was gonna send him to Harvard, in order to study for the ministry. This was way back when... Voiceover: And so when
people tithed, I've always imagined tithe is you give
ten percent of your income, you always give ten percent away of your, I guess they consider
that part of your wealth. Voiceover: Right, well it
was indeed, tithing means giving away ten percent of your wealth, but if you were the
tenth son of a Puritan, one of the kids was
supposed to be a minister, and in this case it was old Ben Franklin, young Ben Franklin, was
supposed to be the minister, but he was not exactly cut for the cloth. You know one day they were salting away the provisions for the winter, and he said to his father,
"Why don't I say grace "over 'em now, we get it done with for the "entire year, we can
bless the entire food!" Yeah, instead of every day. (laughing) Voiceover: And so I think
his father realized that it would be a waste of money to send him to Harvard to study for the ministry, so instead he apprentices him, makes him become an apprentice to his brother James, who was a printer. He was apprenticed at age
12 to this older brother who was a printer. Voiceover: I see, at age
12, and that's essentially, you go do what your brother's doing, this is your education,
I mean, back then... Voiceover: That was the
way you got educated, but in return, you were
bonded, you were bound to work from age 12 and, usually for, I don't know, seven, eight years at least, for an older brother. And if you've ever had an older brother, this was not something Benjamin Franklin liked after a few years. He rankled over authority. That was one of the ways
he was very American. And so he has to decide to teach himself, because he's not going to Harvard, he's not in school. His father decided instead to make him an apprentice to the older brother, and so he teaches himself how to be a good writer by pulling down the
books from his brother's print shop and publishing
house's bookshelf. He started off with like,
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and you know, the essays by Plutarch, and Swift, and Defoe, all these things you and I were reading at age 12... Voiceover: Absolutely! (chuckling) Voiceover: And then he
taught himself how to write. He would take the Spectator
magazine, which was a great magazine in
London at the time written by Addison and Steele, and it would arrive by the post to his brother's print shop, and Franklin would grab
it and he would write down the arguments that Addison and Steele did in their essays, and
then he would chop 'em up with scissors, he would
cut them up, and put it in a different order, and then try to rewrite the essays in a better order than Addison and Steele had done. This is like a, he's by
then 14 or 15 years old! (chuckling) This is really
cool, it's like using Khan Academy to teach
yourself, but your using the Spectator from England instead. Voiceover: And so he becomes, he actually does start writing then, i
guess he, but his brother didn't really wanna... Voiceover: Right, his
brother wouldn't publish him, as I said, he was an older
brother, even though he became a tolerable writer,
he can't get his stuff printed in the New England
Courant, which is his brother's newspaper, so
he has a little trick. He disguises his
handwriting, and he makes up a pseudonym, and he
writes under a fake name. These wonderful essays, he's 16... Voiceover: What's the name that he uses? Voiceover: Silence Dogood. (chuckling) These are the Silence Dogood essays, and you're talking about a
kid who is aged 15 or so, making up this character. Now Silence Dogood was a woman. Now here as I say, this
is a boy who's a pretty troublesome kid, Ben Franklin, he hangs around the docks in
Boston and gets himself in trouble all the time, and he's always cutting work at his brothers print shop, but he invents a
character who's a widowed, older woman, who is dating a minister, and living out in the countryside. Voiceover: So pretty much the exact opposite of himself. Voiceover: Right, (laughing) and it shows something so important in education, which is how do you let
the imagination triumph? And here's a kid, 15
years old, who invents this character, Silence
Dogood, and just does a pure thing of the imagination. She was, indeed, the
opposite of Ben Franklin, but there are lots of
traits that Ben Franklin gave her, and every week she would write about them, that
sort of made you realize okay, it's a bit like
Ben Franklin, because she had this, she wrote
once, "I am a mortal "enemy to arbitrary government
and unlimited power. "I'm very jealous for my
rights and my liberties." In other words, she's a very spunky woman who has an aversion to tyranny. And it was a great description not only of Ben Franklin, but of the country that Ben Franklin was helping to invent. Voiceover: And this is,
just to give people a historical context,
this is well before the American Revolution and independence from Great Britain, I mean we're talking about the early 1700s, we're
talking about the period around 1720... Voiceover: Yeah, we're
talking about 50, 60 years before we really are
gonna have a revolution and break away from England, but already, he believes in liberty,
he believes in an aversion to tyranny, and fighting these things. And you see it in the
way that Silence Dogood, every week, she would write
an essay until he finally got (chucking) found out by his brother. He makes fun of the connection between church and state in Massachusetts, because the governor, [Dunstrin], Dudley, all these people, they
are Puritan ministers who are also the
governor, and the heads of the legislature in
Massachusetts, and he says of Governor Dudley, he said, "anybody who "goes from the clergy into government will "take your money in two different ways, "they'll do it under the guise of taxes, "and then they'll do it
under the guise of God, "asking you for a donation." (chuckling) And so, this little kid
pretending to be an elderly woman is making fun of
the connection between church and state in Massachusetts. It's the beginning of a
free press in America. Voiceover: And that's a big deal, the church was fairly powerful. Voiceover: In Boston in
particular, as you know, it was settled by the
Puritans, and it is a theocratic colony, in other words, Harvard University, the
colony of Massachusetts, and the Puritan heirarchy
were all the same. I mean it was all the same people, Cotton Mather and Increase Mather, and Governor Dudley,
they were the ministers, they were the people who ran the state, they were the people who ran Harvard. Voiceover: So Silence
Dogood, I guess we said that she's the opposite, she
was maybe demographically the opposite of him,
but philosophically... Voiceover: Right, he's
using somebody who's totally a different
type, an elderly woman, to express his own philosophical ideas so he doesn't get caught by his brother.