Franklin took pride in America and being an American. His writings for the militia Association, especially the pamphletPlain Truth,more openly combined Americanism with criticism of the British authorities than any previous writing.Plain Truthalso demonstrated the political power of the press. By expertly using thePennsylvania Gazette,broadsides, and pamphlets, Franklin created a militia of more than ten thousand men, despite the semi-pacifist position of the Pennsylvania Assembly.¹ Though some contemporary Pennsylvanians condemned him, most praised him for an amazing and desirable accomplishment.

Before 1747, England’s war with Spain (1739–48) seemed distant and insignificant to most...

Scholars have often said that Franklin was able to make his early and best contributions to electricity because he was not burdened with past theories concerning the subject.¹ The opinion dates back at least to Pieter van Musschenbroek’s assumption in 1759 that Franklin had not known and still did not know the work of the European electrical experimenters. Musschenbroek, a Dutch natural philosopher and a key figure in discovering the Leyden jar, hoped that Franklin would “go on entirely on your own initiative and thereby pursue a path entirely different from that of the Europeans, for then you shall certainly...

Franklin’s contributions to natural philosophy in electricity, weather, and demography are well-known, but he also wrote on astronomy, geophysics, meteorology, and geography (the northwest passage). The topics recorded by the visiting naturalist Pehr Kalm (1716–79) suggest the breadth of Franklin’s interests. Kalm, a student of Linneaus, came to America in the fall of 1748 to collect plants and animals for the Swedish natural philosopher. He arrived in Philadelphia on 15 September 1748, carrying letters of introduction to Franklin from Peter Collinson and Dr. John Mitchell (3:323). Most topics discussed with Kalm continue Franklin’s earlier interests (Life2:452–99), but...

During the first half of 1748, Franklin became the most popular man in the colony. His entry into elected political office resulted from his creation of the militia Association. Though the representatives elected him printer (1730) and clerk of the assembly (1736), these were primarily political appointments made through the patronage of the Speaker of the House. By 1739, when Speaker Andrew Hamilton retired, Franklin was well established in these positions, obviously doing a good job, and had many friends among the legislators. John Kinsey (Speaker, 1739–50) saw no reason to replace Franklin as printer or as clerk.

Franklin...

Home schooling was at least as important for girls and boys in the eighteenth century as it is today. Three kinds of formal education for boys existed then. One was the elite school, where one primarily studied Latin and, later, a little Greek. Second, other elementary schools existed, like George Brownell’s, which Franklin attended for his second year and final year of schooling, where boys and girls learned a smattering of everything, but one generally spent only a few years at such schools. The third kind of education was the apprenticeship system. Franklin found all three unsatisfactory. The formal school...

The year 1751 was a momentous one in Franklin’s life. After devising the first matching grant and starting the Pennsylvania Hospital, he wrote four of colonial America’s most influential writings. The first was his letter to James Parker of 20 March, discussing Archibald Kennedy’s manuscript, “The Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians to the British Interest.” In the letter, Franklin proposed a union of the colonies, which contained the key suggestions later embodied in the 1754 Albany Plan and subsequently in the Constitution of the United States. Second came the April publication in London ofExperiments...

Franklin’s 1751 manuscript “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.” (4:227–34) documented the extraordinary population growth in America, portrayed its higher standard of living, and predicted its future greatness. It did not call for independence; it celebrated the British Empire—with America as its future most important part. It showed that the American population, because of the availability of land, was more than doubling every twenty-five years. In contrast, the population of England would not double for more than a thousand years. Franklin predicted that America’s population would surpass that of England in a century. It...

Franklin’s friend Dr. Thomas Bond, a fellow Freemason and Library Company member, decided to establish a Pennsylvania hospital early in 1750.¹ Unlike today’s hospitals, eighteenth-century ones were primarily “for the Reception and Cure of poor sick Persons, whether Inhabitants of the Province or Strangers.” The middle class and wealthy persons paid for care in their own homes. Bond did not, at first, engage Franklin in the project. He “was zealous and active in endeavouring to procure subscriptions for it; but the Proposal being a Novelty in America, and at first not well understood, he met with small Success’’ (A 122)....

Franklin and Hugh Roberts were elected Philadelphia representatives on 2 October 1751. The Quaker John Smith recorded that the election was hotly contested and that Franklin received the highest number of votes, 495; that Hugh Roberts received 473; Joseph Fox, 391; and William Plumsted, 303. Smith noted, “A total of 1,662. One half of these being 831, is I suppose a great many more than ever voted for the city before.”¹ Of the four, Franklin was apparently regarded as an independent and won votes from members of both parties, though probably not from those absolutely loyal to the Proprietary Party...

Franklin started the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, America’s first successful fire insurance company, in 1752. He attempted to do so in late 1749.¹ If he followed his customary practice, he brought up the idea in the Junto, made a brief speech in its favor, and the members discussed it. But there are no minutes of the Junto meetings. The minutes of the Union Fire Company, however, state that on 26 February 1749/50, two new members, Israel Pemberton, Jr., and Philip Benezet, agreed to add six pounds to the Company’s stock to make £100...

Though the Quaker Party and the Pennsylvania Assembly tried to avoid the issue, the invasion of the French and their Indian allies into the frontier was gradually affecting Pennsylvania. Skirmishes anticipating the French and Indian War (or Seven Years’War) of 1755–63 occurred with increasing frequency during 1750–55. Pennsylvania fur traders in the Ohio country were seized by French forces, taken to Canada, and sent to France, from whence, by various routes, they made their way back to Philadelphia. There, they appeared before the assembly, asking for comparatively small sums to help them return to the frontier. These were...

Franklin had witnessed Indian treaties as a boy in Boston and later in Philadelphia. He knew the rituals of the Iroquois and other Indian tribes along the East Coast from Massachusetts to Delaware and admired their metaphorical language. He published more treaties than any other colonial printer and made them as attractive as possible. Earlier, he wrote the most popular supposed Indian speech before “Logan’s Speech” (Life2:509–14), and later he echoed passages from several authentic speeches and praised Indian civility.¹ He had never, however, played a key role in an Indian treaty. That changed. Governor James Hamilton learned...

By 1748, thousands of Germans were immigrating to Pennsylvania annually. The percentage of Germans coming into colonial Pennsylvania between 1740 and 1750 was higher than the percentage of immigrants entering the United States at any later time.¹ Dr. Thomas Graeme, a key Proprietary Party member, wrote Thomas Penn on 6 November 1750 about the “present clamour of a great many people here of all Ranks, Friends as much as others,” who feared that the Germans, ‘‘by their numbers and Industry, will soon become Masters of the province’’ and a majority in the legislature. Graeme had talked with Governor James Hamilton...

In the early spring of 1754, learning of the English fort under construction at present-day Pittsburgh, Captain Claude-Pierre Pécaudy, seigneur de Contrecoeur, traveled from Canada to the fort with more than five hundred men and eighteen cannon and demanded its surrender. Ensign Edward Ward, who had been left in charge with about forty men, had no alternative; he capitulated on 17 April 1754. Then Contrecoeur began building Fort Duquesne.¹

Before Philadelphians learned the distressing news, Franklin attempted to drum up support for defenses on the Pennsylvania frontier. He printed a letter dated 8 April in the 2 May 1754Pennsylvania...

The New England post office inspection trip of 2 September 1754 to 21 February 1755 took longer and became more interesting than Franklin had expected. He and William Hunter, joint postmasters general for North America, probably rode horseback,¹ evaluating the routes, riders, and postmasters from Philadelphia northward. They were in New York on 17 September when Franklin wrote a letter recommending a writing master to Richard Peters, secretary of the council. Franklin joked that Pennsylvania was about to have a new governor and a new assembly but that he “did not desire to see a new Secretary: I only think...

The new Pennsylvania governor, Robert Hunter Morris (ca. 1700–1764), a “two-bit Thomas Penn” (as James H. Hutson called him), arrived in Philadelphia on 3 October 1754. He was one of the twenty-four proprietors of East New Jersey, who were hated for their quitrents, for holding on to the best lands while prices rose, and for their harsh treatment of squatters. In appointing Morris governor, Thomas Penn affirmed his commitment to the measures that had made Pennsylvanians resent — and even despise — him.¹

From numerous New Jersey contacts, Franklin knew Morris well. They had seen one another earlier in the fall...

Though the House had adjourned on 28 June until 1 September, Governor Robert Hunter Morris issued writs for the assembly to meet on Wednesday, 23 July, because of Braddock’s defeat. Writing from Fort Cumberland, Maryland, Colonel James Innes of Virginia asked for troops. He reported that not “one single Person came here as Militia from either Virginia or Maryland” and swore that “3,000 or 4,000 Men will absolutely carry Victory before us, when 5 Times their Number in a little Time hence will not do.”¹ On Thursday morning, 24 July, Governor Morris summoned the assembly to the council chamber, reported...

On 16 October, Pennsylvania’s governor Robert Hunter Morris received letters reporting Indian massacres on the Virginia and Maryland frontiers. He did not, however, inform the assembly or request any support for Pennsylvania’s frontier. Shocked by his keeping the House ignorant, Richard Peters wrote Conrad Weiser that “the lives of people were not to be plaid with nor thrown away because the two parts of the legislature differ.” Peters vowed he would not “be accessory to such a step.”¹ On the morning of 18 October, Peters met with Speaker Norris and put the letters on Indian affairs in his hands. Norris...

“With the consent and approbation of the governor,” the commissioners controlled the £60,000 supply bill that had passed on 27 November 1755. When the assembly recessed on 3 December, Franklin and the other commissioners started meeting daily, “Sundays not excepted.”¹ Governor Robert Hunter Morris and the commissioners decided to build a fort at Shamokin, which was near the meeting of the east and north branches of the Susquehanna River (see maps 2 and 3). From there the English could “carry the warr into the Enemy’s Country and hunt them in all their Fishing, Hunting, Planting, and dwelling places” (6.455). on...

The militia companies held elections 22–24 December 1755 while Franklin was on the frontier. Governor Robert Hunter Morris tried to sabotage the elections. The inspectors submitted to him the nine sets of officers for the Philadelphia militia companies on 29 December, but he refused to certify the officers except for one company. The other lists did not include the names of the men (who had volunteered to become soldiers) who had voted for the officers. Rumor had it that Morris wanted the names to turn them over to the officers of the British army coming from New York. The...

The election of 1 October 1756 shattered the Quaker dominance of Pennsylvania politics. The preceding summer, because of the war on the frontier, six pacifist Quakers had found themselves in an untenable position and resigned from the assembly on 4 June 1756 just four months before the 1 October 1756 election. Nevertheless, the prospects did not look good for the Proprietary Party. Richard Peters reported to Thomas Penn on 26 June that Thomas Leech, Daniel Roberdeau, and William Masters all Franklin supporters had replaced them. Then, on 4 September 1756, Peters reported to Penn that the forthcoming 1 October election...

In New York Franklin busied himself writing letters on 11 and 14 April, including a long one on heat and cold to Dr. John Lining. Afterward he called on Lord Loudoun, who talked with Franklin about the Albany post. Loudoun wanted the postal service to be more frequent between New York and Albany, so Franklin investigated. William Franklin had been comptroller but was now about to go to London with him, and his joint postmaster, William Hunter, was in London.

Franklin commissioned his former employee and partner James Parker as comptroller of the post office on 22 April. He designed...

During 1748–57, Franklin continued to write on religion and theology, but he increasingly devoted his energies to natural philosophy rather than moral philosophy and to physics rather than metaphysics. To a large degree, he had achieved the economic independence that would allow him to pursue his multifarious interests. He loved his children and his wife, and Deborah continued to be an essential partner and helpmate, though she sometimes behaved like a jealous stepmother to William—and so, too, thought Franklin, did England toward America.

Franklin took part in Pennsylvania politics almost as soon as he arrived in Philadelphia, but...