Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin received little formal schooling. He became a printer’s apprentice in Boston in 1718, then worked as a printer in Philadelphia from 1723 until 1729. Working independently, Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette (1730­48) and Poor Richard’s Almanac (1732­57). From 1736 to 1751 Franklin served as clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature. He assisted in founding a school in 1751 that later became the University of Pennsylvania. A productive inventor, Franklin’s creations included the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the lightning rod. He began experiments with electricity around 1746 and conducted a famous kite experiment in 1752. Franklin’s political career began when he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1751. He proposed the Albany Plan of Union in 1754. Franklin served as a member of the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Franklin was the American ambassador to France from 1776 to 1785 and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and then retired to private life to complete his autobiography, which was first published in its complete form in 1868.
