Books on benjamin franklin biography philadelphia

BySarah Crocker

Benjamin Franklin is one of those historical figures who gets a bit lost in the telling. If you're American, you might think back to your school days, where you were told the tale of a wise old man who invented a bunch of things like bifocal glasses and also harnassed electricity.

Perhaps you can recall some old painting that shows the Continental Congress gathering before an unsigned Declaration of Independence. Old Ben is probably somewhere in the foreground, looking sage and maybe like he's about to fall asleep.

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While Franklin truly was an inventor and an occasionally sleepy dude, he was so much more than a first-grade story about flying a kite in an electrical storm.

Books on benjamin franklin biography philadelphia

The reality is that Franklin led a deeply conflicted life. He was a brilliant polymath who often neglected his family in order to further himself. He was a British Loyalist until he suddenly wasn't. He was a renowned man of letters who