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Printer and publisher, author and educator, scientist and inventor, statesman and philanthropist, Benjamin Franklin was the very embodiment of the American type of self-made man. In 1771, at the age of 65, he sat down to write his autobiography, \"having emerged 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 through life with a considerable share of felicity.\" The result is a classic of American literature.On the eve of the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, the university he founded has selected the Autobiography for the Penn Reading Project. Each year, for the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania has chosen a single work that the entire incoming class, and a large segment of the faculty and staff, read and discuss together. For this occasion the University of Pennsylvania Press will publish a special edition of Franklin's Autobiography, including a new preface by University president Amy Gutmann and an introduction by distinguished scholar Peter Conn. The volume will also include four short essays by noted Penn professors as well as a chronology of Franklin's life and the text of Franklin's Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, a document resulting in the establishment of an institution of higher education that ultimately became the University of Pennsylvania.No area of human endeavor escaped Franklin's keen attentions. His ideas and values, as Amy Gutmann notes in her remarks, have shaped the modern University of Pennsylvania profoundly, \"more profoundly than have the founders of any other major university of college in the United States.\" Franklin believed that he had been born too soon. Readers will recognize that his spirit lives on at Penn today.Essay contributors: Richard R. Beeman, Paul Guyer, Michael Weisberg, and Michael Zuckerman.

Described as \"a harmonious human multitude,\" Ben Franklin's life and careers were so varied and successful that he remains, even today, the epitome of the self-made man. Born into a humble tradesman's family, this adaptable genius rose to become an architect of the world's first democracy, a leading light in Enlightenment science, and a major creator of what has come to be known as the American character. Journalist, musician, politician, scientist, humorist, inventor, civic leader, printer, writer, publisher, businessman, founding father, philosopher-a genius in all fields and a bit of a magician in some. Volume 3 begins in the year 1748, when Franklin was known in Pennsylvania as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly and in the Middle Colonies as the printer and editor ofPoor Richard's Almanacand thePennsylvania Gazette, the best-known colonial publications. By the middle of 1757, where this volume leaves off, he had become famous in Pennsylvania as a public-spirited citizen and soldier in the conflicts of the Seven Years' War; well known throughout America as a writer, politician, and the most important theorist and patriot of the American empire; and renowned in the western world as a natural philosopher. This volume tells the story of that transformation.

Named \"one of the best books of 2006\" byThe New York SunDescribed by Carl Van Doren as \"a harmonious human multitude,\" Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American of his time, of perhaps any time. His life and careers were so varied and successful that he remains, even today, the epitome of the self-made man. Born into a humble tradesman's family, this adaptable genius rose to become an architect of the world's first democracy, a leading light in Enlightenment science, and a major creator of what has come to be known as the American character. Journalist, musician, politician, scientist, humorist, inventor, civic leader, printer, writer, publisher, businessman, founding father, and philosopher, Franklin is a touchstone for America's egalitarianism. The first volume traces young Franklin's life to his marriage in 1730. It traces the New England religious, political, and cultural contexts, exploring previously unknown influences on his philosophy and writing, and attributing new writings to him. After his move to Philadelphia, made famous in hisAutobiography, Franklin became the Water American in London in 1725, where he was welcomed into that city's circle of freethinkers. Upon his return to the colonies, the sociable Franklin created a group of young friends, the Junto, devoted to self-improvement and philanthropy. He also started his own press and began to edit and publish thePennsylvania Gazette, which became the most popular American paper of its day and the first to consistently feature American news.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which Franklin himself called his Memoirs, is the unfinished record of his life written between 1771 and 1790. It has become one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies in history, and has been praised both as a historical document and a piece of literature in its own right. William Dean Howells declared that \"Franklin's is one of the greatest autobiographies in literature, and towers over other autobiographies as Franklin towered over other men.\"

Representing a lifetime of research by the dean of Franklin scholars, this seven-volume biography will give enthusiasts and scholars an important resource for understanding Benjamin Franklin's character and place in American history. This first volume chronicles the early years of Franklin, from his birth to his marriage in 1730.

In his time Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was the most famous American in the world. Even those personally unacquainted with the man knew him as the author ofPoor Richard's Almanack, as a pioneer in the study of electricity and a major figure in the American Enlightenment, as the creator of such life-changing innovations as the lightning rod and America's first circulating library, and as a leader of the American Revolution. His friends also knew him as a brilliant conversationalist, a great wit, an intellectual filled with curiosity, and most of all a master anecdotist whose vast store of knowledge complemented his conversational skills. InFranklin in His Own Time, by reprinting the original documents in which those anecdotes occur, Kevin Hayes and Isabelle Bour restore those oft-told stories to their cultural contexts to create a comprehensive narrative of his life and work. The thirty-five recollections gathered inFranklin in His Own Timeform an animated, collaborative biography designed to provide a multitude of perspectives on the \"First American.\" Opening with an account by botanist Peter Kalm showing that Franklin was doing all he could to encourage the development of science in North America, it includes on-the-spot impressions from Daniel Fisher's diary, the earliest surviving interview with Franklin, recollections from James Madison and Abigail Adams, Manasseh Cutler's detailed description of the library at Franklin Court, and extracts from Alexander Hamilton's unvarnishedMinutes of the Tuesday Club. Franklin's political missions to Great Britain and France, where he took full advantage of rich social and intellectual opportunities, are a source of many reminiscences, some published here in new translations. Genuine memories from such old friends as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, as opposed to memories influenced by theAutobiography, clarify Franklin's reputation. Robert Carr may have been the last remaining person who knew Franklin personally, and thus his recollections are particularly significant. Each entry is introduced by a headnote that places the selection in its historical and cultural contexts; explanatory notes provide information about people and places; and the editors' comprehensive introduction and chronology detail Franklin's eventful life. Dozens of lively primary sources published incrementally over more than a hundred years illustrate the complexity of the man, his mind, and his mannerisms in a way that no single biographer could.

\"A wonderful addition to the field of eighteenth-century studies, making available in a single volume the latest scholarship on this important figure.\" - Kate Mearns Ohno, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Yale University \"This wide-ranging collection of essays enhances our understanding of the endlessly fascinating runaway, printer, scientist, imperial servant, and revolutionary Benjamin Franklin, and illuminates his significance in American history and culture.\" - Simon P. Newman, Sir Denis Brogan Professor of American History, University of Glasgow.

Volume 3 of the acclaimed biography narrates Franklin's growth from printer to public-spirited politician, soldier, and patriot.

Representing a lifetime of research by the dean of Franklin scholars, this seven-volume biography will give enthusiasts and scholars an important resource for understanding Benjamin Franklin's character and place in American history. This first volume chronicles the early years of Franklin, from his birth to his marriage in 1730.

Little known today, Lydia Bailey was a leading printer in Philadelphia for decades. Her career began in 1808, when her husband Robert died, leaving her with the family business to manage, and ended in 1861, when she retired at the age of 82. During her career, she operated a shop that at its height had more than forty employees, acted as city printer for over thirty years, and produced almost a thousand imprints bearing her name. Not surprisingly, sources reveal that she was closely associated with many of her now better-known contemporaries both in the book trade and beyond, people like her father-in-law, Francis Bailey, Mathew Carey, Philip Freneau, and Harriet Livermore. Through a detailed examination and analysis of various sources, Karen Nipps portrays Bailey’s experience within the context of her social, political, religious, and book environments. Lydia Bailey is the first monograph on a woman printer during the handpress period. It consists of a historical essay detailing Bailey’s life and analyzing her role in the contemporary book trade, followed by a checklist of her more than eight hundred known imprints. In addition, appendixes offer further statistical information on the activities of her shop. Together, these provide rich material for other historians of the book, as well as for historians of the early Republic, gender, and technology.