Ben Franklin

If anyone knew how to enjoy life, it was Ben Franklin. He was interested with everything, and he was driven to share that with others. One of the reasons we know so much about Ben today is because he wrote about what he thought and how he lived.   He even wrote volumes! He drafted letters, journals, essay, and books, Ben Franklin believed that people volunteering together in a spirit of cooperation could accomplish great things. Attracted by a strong sense of civic duty, he embraced himself in his community and his nation. Always mindful of the “greater good.” Franklin helped improve institutions such as circulating libraries, public hospitals, mutual insurance companies, volunteer fire departments, agricultural colleges, and intellectual societies. Newspaper articles, ballads, almanacs, and a celebrated autobiography. As a "man of science," Franklin is best known for his experiments with electricity, but his lifelong curiosity also led him to explore an amazing range of scientific topics. From the common cold to ocean currents, from medicine to music, and from agriculture to the aurora borealis, he believed that human logic could unlock the mysteries of the natural world. More interested in practical applications than in theory, Franklin put his ideas to work through such useful inventions as a smokeless fireplace, bifocal glasses, and the lightning rod. We usually think of Ben Franklin as an American patriot and founding father. But his urge extended much further. At a time when people barely traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born, Franklin made eight Atlantic crossings and visited ten countries. As a skilled diplomat, he negotiated treaties with Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Spain and helped secure America's place in the world. As a respected scientist and scholar, he was granted honorary degrees in England, Scotland, and America. And as an Enlightenment thinker, he exchanged letters with some of the greatest minds of the eighteenth...