Benjamin Franklin was a printer, writer, inventor, civic organizer, and diplomat whose work helped the American Revolution succeed. He never served as U.S. president. His role in winning French support and negotiating peace was at least as important to independence as his better-known presence on the committee that drafted the Declaration.
Browse all Genealogy Gold Podcast EpisodesBenjamin Franklin and American independence
Family, education, and the Boston apprenticeship
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, which was then a city in the English colony of Massachusetts. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a soap and candle maker, born in England. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts to a schoolteacher father and a mother who was a former indentured servant. Benjamin was the fifteenth child of Josiah, and the eighth of Abiah, as Abiah was Josiah’s second wife. Josiah married his first wife, Anne Child, when still in England, and had three children with her there before immigrating to America. Benjamin was also the tenth and last son of Josiah.
Franklin grew up in a Boston household shaped by New England’s religious culture and his father’s trade. His own writings later reflected religious independence and a strong interest in practical moral improvement.
His formal schooling was brief. He attended Boston Latin School and another school before leaving formal education at about ten. Reading, work, and contact with other printers became central to his education. His family had considered the ministry for him, but the expense of extended schooling helped redirect his future.
At twelve, Franklin became an apprentice to his older brother James, a printer in Boston—not Philadelphia. In 1722, at sixteen, he submitted the Silence Dogood essays to James’s New-England Courant under the persona of a widow. Tensions with his brother continued, and in 1723 he left Boston, reaching Philadelphia at seventeen. His later autobiography recounts that difficult apprenticeship and departure.
Deborah Read and family life
In Philadelphia, Franklin met Deborah Read while lodging with her family. He traveled to London in 1724 after promises of support from Pennsylvania’s governor failed to materialize. During his absence, Deborah married John Rogers, who later disappeared from her life. Uncertainty about whether Rogers was still living complicated her ability to remarry formally.
Franklin and Deborah established their household together in 1730 in what is commonly described as a common-law marriage. They raised Franklin’s son William, whose mother is unidentified, as well as their own children Francis Folger Franklin and Sarah Franklin. Francis died of smallpox in 1736 at four. Sarah later married Richard Bache.
Franklin’s work repeatedly took him overseas for long periods. Deborah remained in Philadelphia, where she helped manage household and business affairs. She died in 1774 while Franklin was still in Britain. He returned to America the following year, after the fighting at Lexington and Concord had begun.
The Declaration, French alliance, and peace
Pennsylvania selected Franklin for the Second Continental Congress in 1775. He served on the committee of five appointed to prepare a declaration of independence in 1776. Jefferson wrote the principal draft, while the committee and Congress revised it. Franklin then went to France, where his diplomacy helped secure the alliance of 1778 and the financial and military support essential to American victory.
Franklin joined John Adams and John Jay in negotiating peace with Britain. Later, he served as president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council and took part in the Constitutional Convention. His relationship with slavery also changed: he had enslaved people and printed advertisements connected with the slave trade, but became an abolitionist in his later years. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society beginning in 1787 and supported its petition to Congress against slavery in 1790.
Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence, the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France, the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution in 1787. This unusual combination illustrates how his public service spanned the declaration of independence, the securing of an alliance, the negotiation of peace, and the organization of the new federal government.
He also helped establish institutions devoted to education and civic improvement, including the academy that developed into the University of Pennsylvania. His autobiography began as an account addressed to his son and was written in several stages. It became one of the most influential accounts of a life in early America.
Franklin’s death and remembrance
Franklin died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790, at eighty-four. Accounts commonly estimate the funeral procession drew about 20,000 people, rather than 200,000. He was buried beside Deborah in Christ Church Burial Ground.
As a young man, Franklin drafted a playful epitaph comparing his body to a worn book and expressing hope for a corrected edition. That literary exercise is different from the inscription on his grave.
His plain marker identifies Benjamin and Deborah Franklin and their death years. It offers a quieter memorial than the fanciful book imagery of the early epitaph.
Franklin’s life connects family history with print culture, science, civic institutions, diplomacy, and the difficult history of slavery and emancipation. His importance to the Revolution is clearer when those different parts of his career are considered together.
Learn More
Benjamin Franklin’s Résumé — National Park Service
Benjamin Franklin’s Character and Career — National Park Service
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin — Yale University
Thomas Jefferson in the American Revolution
