No Pain! Gain! Ben Franklin GO What did FLY AA Ben, Mozart, KITE and Beethoven do with ! 37 glass bowls in a case filled with water HOW ? BEN DISCOVERED THE GULF STREAM ELECTRIFYING EXPERIMENT IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Ben_Franklin_FC.indd 1 3/13/17 5:02 PM 2 A Few of Franklin’s Contributions Young Ben Franklin want- r IN FRANKLIN’S ed to be a sailor and see the day, there were no fire hydrants. world beyond colonial Bos- There were also ton. Instead, he learned the no public water systems. When nized the Union remove household printing trade and became a fire broke out, Fire Company goods. Once these the most famous American anyone unlucky – Philadelphia’s volunteer firefight- of his day. He was the best- enough to be first firefighters. ers were in place, trapped in a Each one carried Franklin offered known writer, scientist, and burning build- a leather bucket Philadelphia home- inventor in the New World. ing usually died. to haul water and owners America’s Europeans admired Franklin orga- a canvas bag to first fire insurance. Franklin too. They were im- pressed by his discoveries – especially his ex- periments with electricity. They also enjoyed the delivered three u IN FRANKLIN’S common sense times a week time, there were and humor that in the summer no hospitals, so made his Poor instead of once, sick people were u FRANKLIN WAS and he introduced often cared for at Richard’s Almanack an in- deputy postmaster home delivery home. Franklin ternational best seller. of the colonies. for a small fee. believed that Franklin was the oldest – He rode America’s After the colonies hospitals would postal routes, mea- began to fight for be useful, and and many believe the wisest sured distances, their freedom, the he fought to get – of the United States’ and shook up Second Continental one started. He management. He Congress elected is responsible for founders. He was a legisla- also improved ser- Franklin postmas- the first American tor (lawmaker), the post- vice. For example, ter general. He was hospital, which master general, a diplomat, he had the mail the first person to opened in 1751. between New York hold that position. and a statesman. He helped and Philadelphia write both the Declaration of Independence and the Place U.S. Constitution. He BEN & HIS stamp talked the French into tak- here. ing the American side dur- STAMPS ing the Revolutionary War, and he negotiated peace with Britain. Ben Franklin The United States didn’t start issuing Ben’s face was was quite a person. stamps until 1847. To honor the coun- also on 1¢ stamps try’s first postmaster general, it placed issued in 1898 Ben’s face on the first 5¢ stamp. and 1903. Ben_Franklin_2-3.indd 2 3/13/17 5:03 PM FRANKLIN PROPOSED paper money to replace gold and silver coins. His portrait appears on the $100 bill. Today the only other note that does not feature a U.S. president is the $10 bill. It shows Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury. The $20 bill is scheduled to be redesigned with abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front. She will replace President Andrew Jackson. Ben_Franklin_2-3.indd 3 3/13/17 5:03 PM 4 That was nine long years away. Ben loved to write. But he knew Young Ben James would never knowingly print Ben Franklin was born in Boston in the writings of his 16-year-old 1706. He was the 10th of 17 chil- brother. So Ben signed his witty dren. Ben went to school for just essays “Silence Dogood.” He two years before going to work in slipped them under the print his father’s soap and candle shop. shop’s door. James didn’t realize At that time, school was a luxury this and published several of Ben’s that most tradespeople couldn’t af- essays in the New England Cou- ford. But Ben hated soap-making, rant, the newspaper he had started. so his father sent him to his older The brothers did not get along. brother James to learn printing. As After one bitter quarrel, Ben ran an apprentice – a tradesperson in away to New York and then to Phil- training – Ben had to promise to adelphia, the place he called home work for James until he was 21. for the rest of his long life. l AS SOON AS he reached Philadelphia, hungry young Ben bought three large rolls. He then walked through the city, holding one roll under each arm while he munched on the third. A teenage girl who stood in her door- way that morning, laughing at Ben, was Deborah Read. A MAGNIFYING Try This! She later became GLASS MAY Ben created many rebuses. his wife. HELP! A rebus is a puzzle made up of pictures or symbols. Can you figure this one out? l BEN WAS BORN in Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the early 1700s, the land along the Atlantic coast was home u BEN LOVED TO to settlers and experiment. One Native Americans. day, he was lying It was divided into on his back in the 13 colonies ruled water while hang- by the British king. ing on to a kite To the west lay a string. As the wind huge amount of pushed the kite, it land where Native pulled Ben through Americans lived. the water for almost a mile. Ben_Franklin_4-5.indd 4 3/13/17 5:08 PM r WHEN BEN RAN less than 50 years away from his old when Franklin brother’s shop, arrived in 1723. he took a ship to It was the start- New York. Once he ing point for most learned there was pioneers heading already a printer in west, and it was New York, he left. already about as Philadelphia was big as Boston. MORE THAN ANYTHING else, Ben loved to read. After reading a book that recom- mended not eating meat, he sometimes ate a vegetarian diet. Ben_Franklin_4-5.indd 5 3/13/17 5:06 PM 6 his Gazette became the most important newspaper in the colonies, he used the Printing & Publishing postal service to deliver the paper quickly. Ben came to Philadelphia to be a Franklin also turned out dozens of es- printer, and as a printer, he ac- says, articles, and pamphlets. He wrote complished a lot. He made the thousands of letters (to more than 4,000 fi rst copperplate printin press in people!). He also wrote a four-part autobi- America. As owner and printer of oraph and Poor Richard’s Almanack, the Pennsylvania Gazette, he which was published once a year. It was printed nes aout people liin very popular, and people still treasure cop- in Pennsylvania. Local news was ies of it today. uncommon at that time. When Poor Richard says: “Make haste slowly.”* PRINTING TOOK PATIENCE AND *From Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin strength in the 18th cen- Franklin. The U.S.C. Publishing Co., 1914. tury. Ben set type for the New England Courant and the Pennsylvania Gazette, and he also helped print them. Pieces of type were set by hand, locked into metal frames, and laid on the “bed” of a handpress. A leather ball stuffed with hair was used to apply ink to the type. Then a sheet of damp paper was laid over the type and covered. Next, the flat upper plate of the press, called the platen, was screwed down onto the bed. It pressed the paper against the type. It took two workers to run the press. Printing was a long, hard process. Ben_Franklin_6-7.indd 6 3/13/17 5:09 PM 7 u IT WASN’T EASY – and anyone else club room, but only u ALMOST EVERY predictions, gen- u FRANKLIN for most people who wished – put members could colonial home had eral information, published the first to get books, so in money to buy take them home. an almanac, which and witty say- novel printed in Ben set up a club more books. Fifty The club started in is a calendar book ings. Franklin’s America, Pamela, in which people people joined. 1731. It was the filled with advice Poor Richard’s by Samuel shared their books. Anyone could read first circulating for farmers. It Almanack was the Richardson. Each club member the books in the library in America. includes weather most popular. Ben_Franklin_6-7.indd 7 3/13/17 5:09 PM 8 Scientist and Inventor BEN FRANKLIN studies electri- What made Ben Franklin, who had only cal attraction two years of schooling, a leading scien- and repulsion. tist of the 18th century? The answer is that he was curious. Ben couldn’t help wondering why things did what they did or how things worked. Gypsum is a chalklike substance found naturally in rocks. Ben saw that spreadin psu on a field ade rass grow greener. He suggested farmers put it on their crops. That’s why he gets credit or the idea o usin artificial er- tilizer – a substance added to soil to make plants grow bet- ter. He also was one of the first to fiure out why so many printers, painters, and plumbers were getting sick. Be- cause of the tools of their trades, they were suffering from lead poisoning. Ben wanted to know why it took so much longer to sail from Britain to America than the other way around. So he talked to whaling captains from Nan- tucket, an island off Massachusetts. They told him about a rapid current that runs through the Atlantic Ocean.