Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography Of The American Dream

Words: 1200
Pages: 5

"Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise." (176). Benjamin Franklin was the original definition of the American Dream. He was a hard worker who worked hard to make himself successful. His Autobiography can even be considered a map for those who want to achieve success in life. Surprisingly to me, Franklin left out almost everything past the Revolution out, the whole book was set before the revolution; it can also be used to understand the period before the revolution. Franklin proves that even a young man from the lower middle class can, through hard work, become one of the most famous and admired people of the world. When any American today thinks of the American Dream, they are usually remembering what …show more content…
The autobiography was not established in Franklin's day, so he pretty much made it himself. Not just to tell the story of one's life, but also to teach them of better ways to live. Franklin was one man who left many legacies on this world. He never asked for a patent on an invention, he simply wanted to make life easier on people. Benjamin Franklin was a man that cared for the American people and always strived to make things better for them. Franklin was the fifteenth of seventeen children born on January 17, 1706 to a Boston candle-maker named Josiah. His father sent him to a grammar to school and planned that he would go on to be a minister. However, he was taken out of grammar school and placed into a School for Writing & Arithmetic where he failed in math and was taken out, to work with his father. Throughout the Autobiography, Franklin stresses the importance of hard …show more content…
He boarded a boat to Philadelphia but got caught in a storm and he had to save a drunk man that went overboard. Eventually, the boat dropped him off and he had to walk some fifty miles to Burlington where another boat would take him to Philadelphia. He made it to Philadelphia and found a job with Keimer, the son of the printer in New York. (49). Then Franklin goes to England with his new friend Ralph because the governor said he wrote him a letter of recommendation. However the governor did not write him a letter of recommendation but Franklin gets a job at a printing house. Ralph slowly forgets his children and wife back in America while Franklin forgets Miss Read. Ralph meets a woman and they move to the countryside where he becomes a schoolteacher and they break off their friendship. They met a Quaker man named Mr. Denham who advises Franklin to go back to America. Franklin takes a manager job at Keimer's and fixes the printing house. Eventually Franklin took a partnership with Keimer in New Jersey. He then quits there and starts a new shop in Philadelphia with Meredith. Eventually, the shop does well and Keimer's shop goes bankrupt, so Franklin buys it and turns it around. About this time Franklin finally marries his long time crush Miss Read on September 1,