Ben Franklin
Get to know one of our best inventors
Ben Franklin's Life
Ben Franklin was a self-made man who rose from poverty to eminence through his own industry and intelligence. He was a scientist and an impressive inventor. He was one of seventeen children. Ben Franklin left school early in order to work. At age twelve, he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer; at seventeen, chafing under the yoke of this apprenticeship, Ben journeyed to Philadelphia to seek his fortune. By the time he was twenty- four, he was prosperous merchant, owner of a successful print shop, and publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette.
Ben's Contributions
He helped to found the American Philosophical Society, The University of Pennsylvania and first public library in America. He promoted numerous municipal projects in Philadelphia: paving streets, installing sewer lines, improving street lighting and establishing a fire brigade.
Ben Franklins Inventions
Franklin Stove
Bifocals
Glass Harmonica
Poor Richard's Almanack
An almanac is an annual calendar containing important dates and statistical information such as astronomical data and tide tables.
Aphorisms: “Light purse, Heavy Heart”, “Great talkers, little Doers”, “Eat to live, and not live to eat”, “Nothing more like a Fool, than a drunken man”