The primary documents from Franklin's early decades — 1706 to 1748 — are in his own hand and under his own pseudonyms. The Autobiography covers his Boston years and his arrival in Philadelphia. Poor Richard's Almanack ran for twenty-six years. By forty-two he had retired from business and turned to science. The archive is at Project Gutenberg and Founders Online.
Benjamin Franklin was born January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts — the fifteenth of seventeen children of Josiah Franklin, a soap and candle maker who had emigrated from England. His mother was Abiah Folger, Josiah's second wife. Franklin attended Boston Latin School for one year and one further year of schooling before his father's finances required him to leave formal education at age ten. He went to work in his father's shop making candles and soap.
At twelve he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer, and learned the trade. He read everything he could find and began writing. At fifteen, when his brother James founded the New-England Courant — one of the first independent newspapers in America — Franklin began secretly submitting essays under the pseudonym "Silence Dogood," a middle-aged widow with opinions on religion, marriage, and colonial society. When James discovered the author was his apprentice brother, their relationship broke. At seventeen Franklin ran away, first to New York and then to Philadelphia.
Franklin began writing the story of his own life in 1771, when he was sixty-five years old. He wrote it in four parts across nineteen years and never finished it. It covers his life through 1757. The Autobiography is the only full-length memoir written by any founder in the founding era. The text is at Project Gutenberg.
Having emerg'd from the Poverty and Obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a State of Affluence and some Degree of Reputation in the World, and having gone so far thro' Life with a considerable Share of Felicity, the conducing Means I made use of, which, with the Blessing of God, so well succeeded, my Posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own Situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.
Franklin arrived in Philadelphia in October 1723, age seventeen, with little money and no connections. He described the arrival in the Autobiography — walking up Market Street with a large puffy roll under each arm, his pockets stuffed with shirts and stockings, passing the house of his future wife Deborah Read who watched him from the doorway. He found work as a printer and within a year had attracted the attention of Pennsylvania's colonial governor, Sir William Keith, who promised to sponsor Franklin's trip to London to buy printing equipment.
The promise was false. Franklin arrived in London in 1724 to find no letters of credit from Keith waiting. He worked as a printer in London for eighteen months before returning to Philadelphia in 1726. He recorded his observations and formed a plan for conducting his life — a list of thirteen virtues he intended to practice, tracked in a notebook. The list and the method are in the Autobiography.
It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any Fault at any time; I would conquer all that either Natural Inclination, Custom, or Company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a Task of more Difficulty than I had imagined.
In 1729 Franklin acquired the Pennsylvania Gazette, a struggling newspaper, and rebuilt it into one of the most widely read papers in the colonies. He published it for twenty years. In 1732 he began publishing Poor Richard's Almanack under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders" — an annual publication of weather predictions, proverbs, and practical wisdom. He published it every year for twenty-six years. Poor Richard's circulated across the colonies and was reprinted in Europe. The Almanack is at Founders Online.
I endeavoured to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such Demand that I reap'd considerable Profit from it, vending annually near ten Thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any Neighbourhood in the Province being without it, I consider'd it as a proper Vehicle for conveying Instruction among the common People, who bought scarcely any other Books.
In 1758 Franklin composed "The Way to Wealth" — a preface to the final almanac he prepared himself, drawing together the most-quoted maxims from twenty-six years of Poor Richard's into a single address by a character called Father Abraham. It became the most widely reprinted of all Franklin's writings. It is at Founders Online.
In 1727, at age twenty-one, Franklin organized the Junto — a mutual improvement club of twelve tradesmen and artisans who met Friday evenings to discuss questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy. The Junto became the seed organization for several Philadelphia institutions. The Library Company of Philadelphia — the first subscription library in the colonies — grew from it in 1731. The American Philosophical Society was founded in 1743 with Franklin's involvement. The Philadelphia Contributionship — America's first fire insurance company — was organized in 1752. The Pennsylvania Hospital — the first in the colonies — was established in 1751 partly through Franklin's lobbying of the Pennsylvania Assembly.
Franklin described the founding of the library in the Autobiography.
This was the Mother of all the North American Subscription Libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These Libraries have improv'd the general Conversation of the Americans, made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Privileges.
While running the press and publishing Poor Richard's Almanack, Franklin also invented. In 1741 he designed a new type of iron stove — a metal-lined fireplace insert intended to produce more heat and less smoke than an open hearth. The Pennsylvania Gazette carried his description of it. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered him a patent on the invention. Franklin declined. He recorded his reason in the Autobiography.
Governor Thomas was so pleas'd with the Construction of this Stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a Patent for the sole Vending of them for a Term of Years; but I declin'd it from a Principle which has ever weigh'd with me on such Occasions, viz. That, as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
Franklin applied this principle across his lifetime. He never patented any of his inventions — not the stove, not the lightning rod, not the bifocals he designed in the 1780s, not the glass armonica he constructed in 1761. The Autobiography contains his statement of the reason.
In 1748, at age forty-two, Franklin sold his printing business to his partner David Hall and retired. He was wealthy, well-known throughout the colonies, and had no further need of the print trade. He had spent twenty years building it. He intended to spend the rest of his life in scientific inquiry. He wrote to his friend Cadwallader Colden about this plan. The letter is at Founders Online.
I am in a fair Way of having no other Tasks than such as I shall like to give my self, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great Happiness, Leisure to read, study, make Experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy Men as are pleas'd to honour me with their Friendship or Acquaintance, on such Points as may produce something for the common Benefit of Mankind, uninterrupted by the little Cares and Fatigues of Business.