Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, built a printing business in Philadelphia and became famous for his writing and his experiments with electricity. He proposed the Albany Plan for colonial union in 1754, lobbied against the Stamp Act in London and served in the Continental Congress, where he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and proposed a plan of confederation. As minister to France he secured the French alliance and helped negotiate the 1783 peace treaty. At 81 he was the oldest delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Franklin is remembered as a self-made printer turned scientist and statesman, and admirers point to his diplomacy in France, his role as a conciliator at the Constitutional Convention and his founding of civic institutions such as a lending library, a fire company and a hospital. His Autobiography helped popularize ideals of thrift, industry and self-improvement. His record on slavery has drawn scrutiny. The National Archives notes that as a young man he owned enslaved people and carried advertisements for slave sales in the Pennsylvania Gazette, and that he became an outspoken opponent of slavery only late in life. Critics also cite his 1751 essay disparaging German immigrants in Pennsylvania. Supporters respond that his final public act was a petition to Congress for abolition, which pro-slavery members denounced and the House tabled.