Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the fifteenth of seventeen children of a soap and candle maker, and had only two years of schooling. At twelve he was apprenticed in his brother's printing shop; at seventeen he ran away penniless to Philadelphia, began as a journeyman printer and became a successful publisher. Self-taught, he founded the first subscription library in North America and the forerunner of the University of Pennsylvania, proved with his kite that lightning is electricity, and invented the lightning rod, bifocal spectacles and the Franklin stove. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence, won French aid for the War of Independence as envoy in Paris, and took part in framing the Constitution; he is one of the most beloved of America's founders.