Franklin's Father Josiah

Franklin's Father Josiah PDF Author: Nian-Sheng Huang
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871699039
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Josiah Franklin, a tallow chandler and soapmaker, remains a marginal figure in most biographies of his well-known son, Benjamin Franklin, due largely to a lack of written documentation. Biographers of Franklin included him mainly from a genealogical viewpoint, and few of them gave him further attention. Here, Huang has reconstructed Josiah Franklin's life based on fragmented yet valuable manuscripts in several archival sites in the Boston area, such as his bills, letters, subscriptions, participation in petitions, and court warrants for his legal disputes. She has also drawn info. from newspapers, diaries, business accounts, inventories, deeds, and probate records which were useful to assess his trade and financial circumstances. Illus.

Franklin's Father Josiah

Franklin's Father Josiah PDF Author: Nian-Sheng Huang
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871699039
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Josiah Franklin, a tallow chandler and soapmaker, remains a marginal figure in most biographies of his well-known son, Benjamin Franklin, due largely to a lack of written documentation. Biographers of Franklin included him mainly from a genealogical viewpoint, and few of them gave him further attention. Here, Huang has reconstructed Josiah Franklin's life based on fragmented yet valuable manuscripts in several archival sites in the Boston area, such as his bills, letters, subscriptions, participation in petitions, and court warrants for his legal disputes. She has also drawn info. from newspapers, diaries, business accounts, inventories, deeds, and probate records which were useful to assess his trade and financial circumstances. Illus.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher: Google Auto-narrated Demo
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Franklin's Autobiography has received widespread praise, both for its historical value as a record of an important early American and for its literary style. This work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. This title is based on the Harvard Classics edition.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Thomas S. Kidd
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
A major new biography, illuminating the great mystery of Benjamin Franklin’s faith Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the “thorough deist” who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers influenced Franklin’s beliefs, to be sure, but devout Christians in his life—including George Whitefield, the era’s greatest evangelical preacher; his parents; and his beloved sister Jane—kept him tethered to the Calvinist creed of his Puritan upbringing. Based on rigorous research into Franklin’s voluminous correspondence, essays, and almanacs, this fresh assessment of a well-known figure unpacks the contradictions and conundrums faith presented in Franklin’s life.

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101200901
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
“I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . .” —The New York Sun “Exceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or any other.” —The Washington Post Book World From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself.

A Compleat Body of Divinity

A Compleat Body of Divinity PDF Author: Samuel Willard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Congregational churches
Languages : en
Pages : 1026

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Book Description


Book of Ages

Book of Ages PDF Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307948838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NPR • Time Magazine • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Boston Globe A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians—a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world.

Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies

Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies PDF Author: Robert Middlekauff
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520921038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
In this engaging study of the much-loved statesman and polymath, Robert Middlekauff uncovers a little-known aspect of Benjamin Franklin's personality—his passionate anger. He reveals a fully human Franklin who led a remarkable life but nonetheless had his share of hostile relationships—political adversaries like the Penns, John Adams, and Arthur Lee—and great disappointments—the most significant being his son, William, who sided with the British. Utilizing an abundance of archival sources, Middlekauff weaves episodes in Franklin's emotional life into key moments in colonial and Revolutionary history. The result is a highly readable narrative that illuminates how historical passions can torment even the most rational and benevolent of men.

Young Benjamin Franklin

Young Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Nick Bunker
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101872802
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
In this new account of Franklin's early life, Pulitzer finalist Nick Bunker portrays him as a complex, driven young man who elbows his way to success. From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of forty-one, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge. Always trying to balance virtue against ambition, Franklin emerges as a brilliant but flawed human being, made from the conflicts of an age of slavery as well as reason. With archival material from both sides of the Atlantic, we see Franklin in Boston, London, and Philadelphia as he develops his formula for greatness. A tale of science, politics, war, and religion, this is also a story about Franklin's forebears: the talented family of English craftsmen who produced America's favorite genius.

Stealing God's Thunder

Stealing God's Thunder PDF Author: Philip Dray
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364615
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
“We forget, living in this era of heavily patented research and closely guarded results, how wonderfully exciting the scientific world used to be. In Stealing God’s Thunder, the story of Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the lightening rod and the resulting consequences, that sense of wonder and excitement and even fear comes beautifully to life. Philip Dray does a remarkable job of illuminating the ever-fascinating Franklin and, more than that, the way that he, and his invention, helped create the new scientific world.” –Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection Stealing God’s Thunder is a concise, richly detailed biography of Benjamin Franklin viewed through the lens of his scientific inquiry and its ramifications for American democracy. Today we think of Benjamin Franklin as a founder of American independence who also dabbled in science. But in Franklin’s day it was otherwise. Long before he was an eminent statesman, he was famous for his revolutionary scientific work, especially his experiments with lightning and electricity. Pulitzer Prize finalist Philip Dray uses the evolution of Franklin’s scientific curiosity and empirical thinking as a metaphor for America’s struggle to establish its fundamental values. Set against the backdrop of the Enlightenment and America’s pursuit of political equality for all, Stealing God’s Thunder recounts how Franklin unlocked one of the greatest natural mysteries of his day, the seemingly unknowable powers of electricity and lightning. Rich in historic detail and based on numerous primary sources, Stealing God’s Thunder is a fascinating original look at one of our most beloved and complex founding fathers.

The Portable Benjamin Franklin

The Portable Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143039549
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
It takes a very inclusive anthology to encompass the protean personality and range of interests of Benjamin Franklin, but The Portable Benjamin Franklin succeeds as no collection has. In addition to the complete Autobiography, the volume contains about 100 of Franklin’s major writings—essays, journalism, letters, political tracts, scientific observations, proposals for the improvement of civic and personal life, literary bagatelles, and private musings. The selections are reprinted in their entirety and organized chronologically within six sections that represent the full range of Franklin’s temperament. The result is a zestful read for Franklin scholars and anyone wanting to know and enjoy this American icon. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.