Benjamin Franklin (Critical Lives)

208 Pages·2022·21.661 MB·English

by  Kevin Hayes

Benjamin Franklin
Titles in the series Critical Lives present the work of leading cultural figures of the modern period. Each book
explores the life of the artist, writer, philosopher or architect in question and relates it to their major works.
In the same series
Hannah Arendt Samantha Rose Hill Søren Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
Antonin Artaud David A. Shafer Yves Klein Nuit Banai
Roland Barthes Andy Stafford Arthur Koestler Edward Saunders
Georges Bataille Stuart Kendall Akira Kurosawa Peter Wild
Charles Baudelaire Rosemary Lloyd Lenin Lars T. Lih
Simone de Beauvoir Ursula Tidd Jack London Kenneth K. Brandt
Samuel Beckett Andrew Gibson Pierre Loti Richard M. Berrong
Walter Benjamin Esther Leslie Rosa Luxemburg Dana Mills
John Berger Andy Merrifield Jean-François Lyotard Kiff Bamford
Leonard Bernstein Paul R. Laird René Magritte Patricia Allmer
Joseph Beuys Claudia Mesch Stéphane Mallarmé Roger Pearson
Jorge Luis Borges Jason Wilson Thomas Mann Herbert Lehnert and Eva Wessell
Constantin Brancusi Sanda Miller Gabriel García Márquez Stephen M. Hart
Bertolt Brecht Philip Glahn Karl Marx Paul Thomas
Charles Bukowski David Stephen Calonne Henri Matisse Kathryn Brown
Mikhail Bulgakov J.A.E. Curtis Guy de Maupassant Christopher Lloyd
William S. Burroughs Phil Baker Herman Melville Kevin J. Hayes
John Cage Rob Haskins Henry Miller David Stephen Calonne
Albert Camus Edward J. Hughes Yukio Mishima Damian Flanagan
Fidel Castro Nick Caistor Eadweard Muybridge Marta Braun
Paul Cézanne Jon Kear Vladimir Nabokov Barbara Wyllie
Coco Chanel Linda Simon Pablo Neruda Dominic Moran
Noam Chomsky Wolfgang B. Sperlich Georgia O’Keeffe Nancy J. Scott
Jean Cocteau James S. Williams Octavio Paz Nick Caistor
Joseph Conrad Robert Hampson Pablo Picasso Mary Ann Caws
Salvador Dalí Mary Ann Caws Edgar Allan Poe Kevin J. Hayes
Charles Darwin J. David Archibald Ezra Pound Alec Marsh
Guy Debord Andy Merrifield Marcel Proust Adam Watt
Claude Debussy David J. Code Sergei Rachmaninoff Rebecca Mitchell
Gilles Deleuze Frida Beckman Arthur Rimbaud Seth Whidden
Fyodor Dostoevsky Robert Bird John Ruskin Andrew Ballantyne
Marcel Duchamp Caroline Cros Jean-Paul Sartre Andrew Leak
Sergei Eisenstein Mike O’Mahony Erik Satie Mary E. Davis
William Faulkner Kirk Curnutt Arnold Schoenberg Mark Berry
Gustave Flaubert Anne Green Arthur Schopenhauer Peter B. Lewis
Michel Foucault David Macey Dmitry Shostakovich Pauline Fairclough
Benjamin Franklin Kevin J. Hayes Adam Smith Jonathan Conlin
Sigmund Freud Matthew ffytche Susan Sontag Jerome Boyd Maunsell
Mahatma Gandhi Douglas Allen Gertrude Stein Lucy Daniel
Jean Genet Stephen Barber Stendhal Francesco Manzini
Allen Ginsberg Steve Finbow Igor Stravinsky Jonathan Cross
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Jeremy Adler Rabindranath Tagore Bashabi Fraser
Günter Grass Julian Preece Pyotr Tchaikovsky Philip Ross Bullock
Ernest Hemingway Verna Kale Leo Tolstoy Andrei Zorin
Langston Hughes W. Jason Miller Leon Trotsky Paul Le Blanc
Victor Hugo Bradley Stephens Mark Twain Kevin J. Hayes
Aldous Huxley Jake Poller Richard Wagner Raymond Furness
Derek Jarman Michael Charlesworth Alfred Russel Wallace Patrick Armstrong
Alfred Jarry Jill Fell Simone Weil Palle Yourgrau
James Joyce Andrew Gibson Tennessee Williams Paul Ibell
Carl Jung Paul Bishop Ludwig Wittgenstein Edward Kanterian
Franz Kafka Sander L. Gilman Virginia Woolf Ira Nadel
Frida Kahlo Gannit Ankori Frank Lloyd Wright Robert McCarter
Benjamin Franklin
Kevin J. Hayes
reaktion books
For Tom Barden
Published by
reaktion books ltd
Unit 32, Waterside
44–48 Wharf Road
London n1 7ux, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2022
Copyright © Kevin J. Hayes 2022
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78914 517 5
Contents
Introduction 7
1 The Cabinet of Curiosities 19
2 The Power of the Printed Word 39
3 The Improvement and Well-Peopling of the Colonies 62
4 An American Agent in London 89
5 The Declaration of Independence 115
6 An American Diplomat in Paris 140
7 The Nestor of America 162
References 183
Select Bibliography 202
Acknowledgements 205
Photo Acknowledgements 207
Benjamin Franklin: The Statesman and Philosopher, 1847, lithograph.
Introduction
Benjamin Franklin casts a long shadow. In 1870, eighty years after
Franklin’s death, Mark Twain wrote ‘The Late Benjamin Franklin’.
With its homey epigraph, Twain’s essay reflects the lasting power
of the saws and sayings from Poor Richard’s Almanack. Instead
of repeating what Franklin says about procrastination – ‘Never
leave that till tomorrow which you can do today’ – Twain spoofs it:
‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do day after tomorrow
just as well.’1
Poor Richardisms focus Twain’s facetiousness. Franklin, he says,
‘prostituted his talents to the invention of maxims and aphorisms
calculated to inflict suffering upon the rising generation of all
subsequent ages’. He made life hell for boys. Whenever one tried
squeezing some pleasure from life, his father would throw Franklin
in his face.2
Many have read Twain’s essay as a complaint, but J. A. Leo
Lemay reads it as a compliment, a playful homage by a fellow
journalist, printer, humourist and maxim-monger. Twain’s
biography supports Lemay’s interpretation. His brother Orion
Clemens reprinted several Poor Richardisms in his Missouri
newspaper and named his Iowa printing house the Ben Franklin
Book and Job Office. As his brother’s apprentice, Twain followed
Franklin, who apprenticed in his brother James’s Boston printing
house. Travelling to Philadelphia in 1853, Twain visited Franklin’s
tomb and toured Independence Hall, where he deliberately sat
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where Franklin had sat. Three years later, Twain delivered a speech
commemorating Franklin’s 150th birthday. And two decades after
that, Twain reread and annotated Franklin’s autobiography.3
Franklin’s is the most famous autobiography in American
literature. Its episodes have become familiar to readers around the
globe, especially the story of Benjamin breaking his indenture,
going on the lam to escape his brother’s abuse and reaching
Philadelphia, where he found himself munching a puffy roll while
carrying others as he toured the city on a long day that ended at the
Crooked Billet Tavern. Franklin takes his personal story through
his electrical experiments to his 1757 journey to London, where it
cuts off, leaving unwritten his legislative, diplomatic and literary
life during the Revolutionary era.
The weight that Twain gives to Franklin’s famous sayings
compared to the autobiography reflects how influential they had
become. But it was not Poor Richard’s per se that immortalized
the maxims, but one particular part of one particular almanac.
Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1758, Franklin’s last, included ‘Father
Abraham’s Speech’, a ‘greatest hits’ compilation from his earlier
almanacs. Speaking to some bargain-hunters, Father Abraham
repeats numerous Poor Richardisms, telling the crowd, ‘Let us
hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; “God
helps them that help themselves,” as Poor Richard says.’4
The next year Franklin’s nephew, namesake and quondam
printing partner Benjamin Mecom separately issued Father
Abraham’s Speech, which would reappear countless times as The
Way to Wealth, a title that puffs it as a self-help guide to money-
making. The Way to Wealth became a staple of the chapmen’s trade.
Travelling salesmen known as chapmen would fill their packs
with little books known as chapbooks and sell them across the
countryside. As a chapbook, The Way to Wealth permeated America.
It widely disseminated Franklin’s famous sayings and crystallized
his reputation as the Wizard of Saws. With a three-decade head
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start on the autobiography, The Way to Wealth also conditioned how
people perceived Franklin’s life.
Reprints were not restricted to America. During the eighteenth
century The Way to Wealth was translated into French, Gaelic,
German, Italian and Russian. One London printer issued The Way
to Wealth in 1779 as a broadside, a one-page edition suitable for
framing. English publishers from Bath to Canterbury subsequently
reissued more broadsides. Perhaps Twain’s account is not so
hyperbolic. Hanging a framed copy of The Way to Wealth in the
parlour, parents could remind their children daily about Franklin’s
wisdom.5
The French traveller Michel Chevalier, who visited Cincinnati,
Ohio, in 1834, was impressed by how the city had grown. Its
founders had ‘brought with them nothing but sharp-sighted,
wakeful, untiring industry’, Chevalier observed. ‘They seem
to have chosen Franklin for their patron-saint, and to have
adopted Poor Richard’s maxims as a fifth gospel.’ The history
of publishing confirms Chevalier’s observation. One Cincinnati
publisher reprinted The Way to Wealth in 1815.6 With little more
than Franklin’s admonition to hard work, Ohio settlers created
Cincinnati. The Way to Wealth settled the West.
Franklin’s pamphlet is closely connected to Chevalier’s
Saint-Simonist philosophy. Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de
Saint-Simon, believed industrial leaders should control society
to encourage hard work and eliminate poverty. Saint-Simon
foresaw a world based not on wealth or privilege but on merit.
Studying with Jean le Rond d’Alembert, he learned about science.
Fighting on the American side during the War of Independence,
he learned about hard work. Saint-Simon believed that together,
science and industry could accelerate civilization. He deeply
respected America’s Founding Fathers. Franklin, for one, united the
labourer’s persistence, the philosopher’s sagacity and the scientist’s
patience.7
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