History of Benjamin Franklin - Inspiring Billionaire

Benjamin Franklin or his other name Ben Franklin is a name that most Americans must have heard of and everything about his inspiring stories could not have made us feel better about ourselves. He plays an important role in America's Declaration of Independence as well as being one of the foremost of the Founding Fathers.

He has made so many contributions to mankind and science which helps us better understand electricity and is constantly being remembered to this day thanks to the elegance of his writing.

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If we were to look at an individual with a billionaire status that is at the top, one might say Benjamin Franklin. But the question is why?

Early Livelihood

Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts on 17 January 1706. He was then baptized in the Old South Meetinghouse and he is one of the 17th children whose father is Josiah Franklin and was given birth to the second wife of Josiah, Abiah Folger.

His father wanted him to go to a religious school but his parents only had enough money to send him there for 2 years. He attempted to go to Boston Latin School but his application was rejected.

But things did not end there as they were not about to give up as he continuously did his readings each day to increase his knowledge without going to school. Both his parents wished for him to work in a church but things were tough for them financially and Benjamin had to quit school when he was 10 years of age.

After ending his school times, he started working for his father's business in the meantime, and when he was only 12 he inherited his brother's talent, James in the newspaper printing industry.

When he was 15, his brother let go of his position in the company and decided to open his own newspaper company called Courant New England which is an independent newspaper that voices out the current issues.

During his involvement in the newspaper after replacing his brother's seat, he used a lot of pseudonyms like Silence Dogood which have caused great controversies due to his own writings.

From the start, his brother James was unaware of these controversies as the one that was criticizing the current propaganda was his own brother, Benjamin Franklin. However, due to obtaining information from many sources, James finally realized that the ghostwriter that corresponds to the negative impression was his own brother.

You can just imagine that someone who only reached the age of 15 is fighting for the right to free speech. When James was sentenced to 3 weeks in prison in 1772, Benjamin was forced to take over his brother's role in the company.

Some of his statements in the newspaper include;

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech"

Despite himself being only 17 at the time, he had left everything in his life that is related to his family and is now wanted by the local authority. For your information, Benjamin Franklin is also an apprentice to the status of a billionaire who is known as a Run-away kid since he ran away from home and his family.

Aside from Benjamin, other individuals did the same thing like Jesse Livermore and Chung Ju-Yung.

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He ran away to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When trying to start a new life, he worked at a printing company in that town but he wanted to get a profit really quickly. All he ever wanted was to get as much knowledge as possible.

After a few months of working, his talent in the business is started being noticed by the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith. This led to the governor supplying the necessary tools to encourage Benjamin into starting his own business.

Benjamin clearly accepted the offer and did his best in his new business.

Junto and Library

In 1727 when he was 21 years old, Benjamin Franklin established a group of thinkers that focuses on discussing the current issues that can improve their living standards and the community around them. The group was known as Junto.

Reading is one of the ideology that Junto is trying to advocate and even though the price of books at the time were definitely not cheap, this did not stop them from trying. Because of this problem, the Junto members decided to build a library from the revenue from their writings.

One of their quotations states;

"A proposition was made by me that since our books were often referr'd to in our disquistions upon the inquiries, it might be convenient for us to have them altogether where we met, that upon occasion they might be consulted; and bu thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we lik'd to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole."

However, this was definitely not enough. He thought that it will be much better if the library operated as a subscription to all its members and after that, a fund should be established to be used by all the members. This led to the establishment of the Library Company of Philadelphia and the library's charter was created by Benjamin himself.

In 1732, it was the first time that Benjamin hired the first American librarian, Louis Timothee. The library company has expanded towards becoming a scholar's library and an institute of research.

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It was quite a contribution considering that all of this was done when Benjamin was 21 years old at the time. He had already been known as a nationalist and had the ambition of improving the local economy.

Newspaperman

In 1978, he established a printing home with the help of Hugh Meredith, and years after he became the first newspaper publisher called The Pennsylvania Gazette.

The printing company has a huge impact on his life and some of it includes proving a platform medium which is a forum to talk about all the problems that are being faced. Not just that but it also has given them a good name for himself as he is known as a young and intellectual person.

Printed newspaper plays a crucial role in providing a platform for people to voice out all the problems that are currently being faced and the solutions. The existence of the internet has led to the digitalization of these companies making information easy to spread.

As always everything that Benjamin touches turns to gold as if he had the Midas touch and he managed to make a name for himself as the one to monopolize the newspaper business.

Benjamin Franklin passed away on 17 April 1790 when he was 84 years old. He left his legacy as someone who is a writer, scientist, innovator, nationalist, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher.

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