Great people
We all heard a lot about “American dream”, but never seen its personification within the human. That human did exist, we even know how he looked like, because his face is always looking upon us for the decades from the US 100 dollar bill. Meet Benjamin Franklin – politician, scientist, writer, philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.
Life on a whiff
His biography should be studied by those who don’t believe that human’s possibilities are unlimited. Benjamin was born on 17-th of January, 1706 in Boston. He became the 10-th and the youngest son of the tallow chandler, a maker of candles and soap, who had 17 children. The young boy studied at school only for two years, and since he became 10 – he was earning for his life at the candle works, then printing house. When he got 17, Benjamin went to Philadelphia without a coin in his pocket; there he was employed at the printing house. Some time passed and Benjamin became the master of the printing business, and even improved some equipment there. During his leisure time Benjamin self-educated himself on many topics like ancient and modern languages, philosophy, physics, and literature.
At 1729 Benjamin started to publish “The Pennsylvania Gazette” which soon became the most popular publication in Northern America. It was Franklin’s idea to create the Public library that could be visited by anybody. First of these libraries in English colonies were opened in 1731. The same year Benjamin Franklin was accepted to the freemasons at the St. John’s Craft in Philadelphia, three years later he already was the Great Master of the Great Craft. He was getting more and more worried about the future of English colonies, about their freedom and development prospects. Franklin started to publish his opinions not just in newspapers, but in “Poor Richard’s Almanac” also, which made him popular.
Shortly people started to consider his opinion – he became very respectable person. That’s how Franklin became politician, in 1737 he was chosen as the secretary of the Pennsylvania Assembly, in 1753 he was appointed as the general postmaster of North American colonies. During his staying at this post he cardinally reformed post service, and for the long time it was the most advanced in the world.
