The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was The First American as the title of the book by H.W. Brands suggests. On his road to becoming the first American, Brands argues that Franklin considered himself British and intended to settle in London and live out his life until a course of events set in place by the times altered his life path. The work covers Franklin’s life from birth and ends with his death the night of April 17, 1790. Brands exposition of Franklin removes him from the historical folk character every sc

Benjamin Franklin was The First American as the title of the book by H.W. Brands suggests. On his road to becoming the first American, Brands argues that Franklin considered himself British and intended to settle in London and live out his life until a course of events set in place by the times altered his life path. The work covers Franklin’s life from birth and ends with his death the night of April 17, 1790. Brands exposition of Franklin removes him from the historical folk character every school kid in America learns about and transforms him into a genius level figure, sought after worldwide for intellectual discussions and employment of his skills to solve conflicts around the world. It was Dr. Franklin, not Dr. Kissinger, who invented shuttle diplomacy.

His experiments with electricity, culminating in his capture of lightning from the heavens, had won him universal praise as a modern Prometheus. His mapping of the Gulf Stream saved the time and lives of countless sailors. His ingenious fireplace conserved fuel and warmed homes on both sides of the Atlantic. His contributions to economics, meteorology, music, and psychology expanded the reach of human knowledge in the grip of human power. For his accomplishments the British Royal Society had awarded him its highest prize; foreign societies had done the same. Universities cued to grant him degrees. The ablest minds of the age consulted him on matters large and small. Kings and emperor's summoned him to court, where they admired his brilliance and basked in its reflected glory.

Born on January 17, 1706 , Benjamin was his father’s fifteenth child, his tenth son. At 17 year of age, seeking opportunity and intellectual challenges, he took off for New York, then Philadelphia. The promise of another opportunity that same year landed him in London. By now, and expert printer, he returned to Philadelphia opening his own printing business. While there he began to publish the Philadelphia Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Soon after Franklin’s success had blossomed, he married Debbie Read, who he had courted prior to leaving for London. Unfortunately, He had ignored Read during his absence and she married another. The collapse of that marriage allowed for Franklin to finally take his bride on September 1, 1730. Soon after, a son was born. However, the son was not from the union of Franklin and his new bride. Rather the boy resulted from a relationship Franklin had with a woman who is lost to history.

The first portion of the book exposes so many elements of Franklin that that high school and under grad textbooks leave out for expediency and public decency. As the book continues it turns to the better know tales of congresses, conventions and constitutions. Brands takes several sidebars that will be interesting to students of history with mini-biopics on historical characters of the period as an introduction prior to intertwining their live with Franklins. Character studies of William Penn, and the shaping of the world’s first planned city; Religious pundit Cotton Mathers; George Whitfield, the great orator whose words inspired a continent; and George Washington and his contemporaneous adventures in the Ohio country were all fascinating side notes that actually would be a good source for short history projects. The chapter notes are useful as they name the personal correspondence and other primary sources that will be useful for further research.

The author, H.W. Brands is a product of Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin where he is a professor of history. He has published at least thirty titles including biographies on Presidents Grant, Jackson, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin was published in New York in 2000 by Doubleday. While there were not an abundance of reviews in academic journals on Brand’s work on Franklin, there was praise and criticism from learned sources.

H. W. Brands The First American removes some of the varnish from the Benjamin Franklin that we all grew up knowing as the bespectacled grandfather of our country who invented the rocking chair and flew a kite with a key tied to the string. Brands exposes Franklin as a flesh and blood person who had parents that could not give him proper care and education and abandoned him to indentured servitude. We see Franklin as a character that escaped his bondage and lived by his wits in the streets. He grew before our eyes as one whose wits served him well, as others easily recognized his abilities and lifted him out of his predicaments. He was a womanizer who gambled away and lost his one true love just to win her back again to begin building a life. Each time Franklin tried to quit public life and sink into a relaxed retirement, he was pulled back in, time and again, to act as the agent of wisdom for complex times. He came to love England, where he was able to find the intellectual companionship he craved and was given the respect he deserved. He was of high morals and when forced to choose between the England he adopted and the America that bore him, he saw the corruption of England and the hope for America, and he chose America. Brands has delivered Benjamin Franklin to readers in a form that is enjoyable to read and at the same time challenges old notions of an Americas Folk hero.