This Week's Story
subscribe to podcast [click here] or play audio below
Ben Franklin was an unstoppable force from one job to the next, building new skills and stepping into opportunity!
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
Huhhh…, yes! A possible solution! part two
Almost three hundred years ago Ben Franklin did not magically at age twenty-four own a successful printing business in big sprawling Philadelphia. His lively imagination and brilliant memory for what he saw and heard had been spicing and training him.
His life journey began in Boston. For only two years he attended school, followed by working in the family business. He took walks with his father to observe skills he might learn. At age twelve he became a printing apprentice to his brother James.
Ben did well as an apprentice. Privately he was reading and learning to write so well that his writing was regularly in a newspaper column under a fake name. Adults found the column topics interesting and assumed they were written by an adult.
Trouble came when Ben’s brother James offended public authorities with the position his newspaper took regarding smallpox treatment. James was sent to jail.
Ben continued the newspaper. In his column he printed an excerpt
from the newspaper London Journal: “Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech….”
Years later when Ben Franklin had become a founding father of the United States this thinking was a building block for himself, and for what the United States would need to become a free nation.
Ben managed the Courant newspaper for eight months. The job grew tedious and he was bursting with ambition. He decided to run away and ended up in Philadelphia where he got a job as a journeyman with Samuel Keimer. He met the governor of Pennsylvania. He told Ben, “I will give you a letter for getting credit to start your own business. Go to London and buy printing equipment.”
After the ship sailed with Ben on board, Ben learned the governor had provided no letter of credit. Ben arrived in London with no money, but he was a skilled journeyman printer. He soon found work at a printing company.
What a great time to be in London with many terrific writers! Men like Lord Chesterfield, Defoe, Pope, and Robert Walpole were having their books printed. Ben read their works, borrowed books, and made many friends. He learned advanced printing skills and was tremendously stimulated mentally!
A Quaker merchant offered to pay Ben’s ship fare back to America, if Ben would work for him. Soon after they returned to Philadelphia the man died. Ben returned to again working for Samuel Keimer for good wages, but Keimer was a poor employer and took advantage of Ben’s skills. Ben became the trainer for apprentices and indentured men. None of them had printing training!
As usual Ben saw needs. He cast the first type for print made in the Thirteen Colonies. He used old type to make molds.
When Keimer saw his employees trained, he decided to discharge his highest paid employee, Ben, by starting a quarrel. Ben walked out with another employee. The two of them began a new business. That did not last long because Ben’s partner was a heavy drinker. Ben borrowed money and bought him out.
Ben was in business by himself at age twenty-four. For eighteen years he dominated the printing trade in Philadelphia, worked day and night, usually seven days a week. He would expand and be a slave to no creditor.
Please join Todd Warren, Carlos Gamez, and I, Barbara Steiner, as we follow Ben Franklin into the pre-revolutionary war days.
Check out the website: thisweeksstory.com.
<< previous story] [next story >>
We invite your comments! [click here to comment]
Join the conversation.
This Week's Story is a non-profit supported by listeners. [click here to make a donation]