The Age of Invention: A Chronicle of Mechanical ConquestThompson, Holland
History
The Age of Invention: A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest
Thompson, Holland
Inventions -- History; Inventors -- United States
Benjamin found employment with Samuel Keimer, an eccentric printer just
beginning business, and lodgings at the house of Read, whose daughter
Deborah was later to become his wife. The intelligent young printer soon
attracted the notice of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, who
promised to set him up in business. First, however, he must go to London
to buy a printing outfit. On the Governor's promise to send a letter
of credit for his needs in London, Franklin set sail; but the Governor
broke his word, and Franklin was obliged to remain in London nearly two
years working at his trade. It was in London that he printed the
first of his many pamphlets, an attack on revealed religion, called "A
Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." Though he met
some interesting persons, from each of whom he extracted, according to
his custom, every particle of information possible, no future opened for
him in London, and he accepted an offer to return to Philadelphia with
employment as a clerk. But early in 1727 his employer died, and Benjamin
went back to his trade, as printers always do. He found work again in
Keimer's printing office. Here his mechanical ingenuity and general
ability presently began to appear; he invented a method of casting type,
made ink, and became, in fact, the real manager of the business.
The ability to make friends was one of Franklin's traits, and the number
of his acquaintances grew rapidly, both in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
"I grew convinced," he naively says, "that TRUTH, SINCERITY, and
INTEGRITY in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance
to the felicity of life." Not long after his return from England he
founded in Philadelphia the Junto, a society which at its regular
meetings argued various questions and criticized the writings of the
members. Through this society he enlarged his reputation as well as his
education.
The father of an apprentice at Keimer's furnished the money to buy a
printing outfit for his son and Franklin, but the son soon sold his
share, and Benjamin Franklin, Printer, was fairly established in
business at the age of twenty-four. The writing of an anonymous pamphlet
on "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency" called attention to
the need of a further issue of paper money in Pennsylvania, and the
author of the tract was rewarded with the contract to print the money,
"a very profitable job, and a great help to me." Small favors were
thankfully received. And, "I took care not only to be in REALITY
industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I
drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion." And, "to show
that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I
purchased at the stores thru the streets on a wheelbarrow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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