FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN,

born Jan. 17 [Jan. 6, Old Style], 1706, Boston died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia pseudonym Richard Saunders American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat, who is probably best remembered for his role in separating the American colonies from Great Britain and in helping to frame both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. By the time he began his diplomatic career, Franklin had invented the Franklin stove, bifocal spectacles, and the lightning rod. He had made a small fortune from his various business ventures and contributed to science with his experiments in electricity. A brief account of the life and works of Benjamin Franklin follows. For a full biography, see Franklin. The 10th son of 17 children of a soap and candlemaker, Franklin ended his formal education at the age of 10. At 12 he was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, and he worked at that trade first in Philadelphia and later in London. In about 1729 he became the printer of paper currency for the colony of Pennsylvania and some of the other colonies. At that time he began publication of the Pennsylvania Gazette, a colonial newspaper, and Poor Richard's, a series of almanacs in which he printed numerous proverbs praising prudence, industry, and honesty. Franklin promoted the establishment of such public services as a fire department, a lending library, and an academy that grew to be the University of Pennsylvania. In 1748 he gave up the management of his publications to devote himself to science, but in 1753 he served as deputy postmaster general in charge of the mails in all the northern colonies. Franklin spent the years from 1757 to 1762 in London representing the colony of Pennsylvania in a dispute over the lands held by the Penn family. In 1764 he was sent back to London, and in March 1775, aware that there might be war between the colonies and Great Britain, he left England. Back in Philadelphia he served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, in which he helped draft the Declaration of Independence. In 1776 Franklin went to France to seek military and financial aid for the colonies. There he became a hero to the French people, the personification of the unsophisticated nobility of the New World. At the close of the Revolutionary War, Franklin was one of the diplomats chosen to negotiate peace with Great Britain, and, although his proposal for a one-chamber national legislature was rejected, he was instrumental in achieving the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.