Benjamin Franklin's Epitome In The Colonial Era

Franklin’s Epitome in the Colonial Era
The only man to put his John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 was given the name Benjamin Franklin on January 17, 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts (Hansen). This newborn child would soon become one of the founding fathers of the United States. Throughout his life, the Renaissance man, Benjamin Franklin, excelled in many areas and became known as a scientist, inventor, musician, postmaster, printer, leading author, politician, political theorist, statesman and diplomat. This great man not only devoted most of his time to being the 6th president of Pennsylvania or to publishing the illustrious Poor Richard’s Almanack, but mainly left set a precedent

You will know failure. Continue to reach out” (The Electric Benjamin Franklin). Benjamin Franklin spent many hours and days throughout his life trying to create inventions that would bring a change in society. He even spent a countless number of days without sleeping trying to figure out what he had incorrectly done in his calculations. Due to him overcoming his fear of mistakes, Franklin was the first person to establish a fire department. In the early 1700’s when Benjamin Franklin was on a visit to Boston, he noticed that the residents of the city were better prepared to fight fires than the people inhabitants of his city, Philadelphia. When he finally reached home, he discussed suggestions on better ways to fight fires with the Junto, a generous group dedicated to civil and self improvement. Franklin wanted to also raise public awareness about the city’s grim need to improve fire-fighting techniques. He noticed how fires were fought in the Pennsylvania Gazette article of 1733, and saw how active men of all different ages, and professions applied themselves with their abilities to the work of conquering fire (Hansen). Franklin still thought these unpaid firefighters were not enough. He then suggested a society or group in which active men would unite together and belong to a fire engine and fight fires together. Franklin wrote this idea and sent it as an anonymous letter to his own newspaper entitled “Protection of Towns from Fire”

In the early America, books were rare and expensive and there was no place for people to get them for free. The very rich and the clergy were the only ones who had access to large numbers of books. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and the Junto, a philosophical association, created the “Articles of Agreement” to form a library (Hansen). This group was interested in many ideas from politics to math to science. None of them had many books, so they decided that each one of the 50 subscriber should buy 40 books each to start a library. The members also promised to get 10 new books every year and incase the books were running out. A year later the company’s first book order was sent to London. James Logan, secretary to William Penn, aided in choosing the books due to his intellect and having the largest personal library in Pennsylvania (Colbert). Many books in the new library consisted of religion or education until Benjamin Franklin and some other members donated book involving politics, philosophy, business, and science. This library also began to have a librarian and a company secretary who would correspond with the librarian and order books. Franklin was a both a librarian and a secretary. The Library Company was also helped monetarily by many benefactors from abroad. This library was open Saturday afternoons for four hours. Members could borrow books for free while non-members had to give some kind of deposit