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Read Me First
Check out this article highlighting reviews of recent scholarship on Benjamin Franklin before proceeding into looking at the books listed below. The review article is also located within our Files on Canvas.
Andrews, Dee E. "Benjamin Franklin Turns 301 -- A Review Essay." The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 105, no. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 247-275.
- Benjamin Franklin Turns 301 -- A Review Essayby Dee E. Andrews (2007)
Books of Note: Franklin
Benjamin Franklin by
Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the most remarkable figure in American history: the greatest statesman of his age, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the American republic. He was also a pioneering scientist, a best-selling author, the country's first postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant, a diplomat, a ladies' man, and a moralist - and the most prominent celebrity of the 18th century.
Call Number: Available in print and ebookISBN: 9780300095326Publication Date: 2002-08-11
Benjamin Franklin by
In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character. Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative that follows Franklin's life from Boston to Philadelphia to London and Paris and back, Walter Isaacson chronicles the adventures of the runaway apprentice who became, over the course of his eighty-four-year life, America's best writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, and business strategist, as well as one of its most practical and ingenious political leaders. He explores the wit behind Poor Richard's Almanac and the wisdom behind the Declaration of Independence, the new nation's alliance with France, the treaty that ended the Revolution, and the compromises that created a near-perfect Constitution. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, showing how he helped to forge the American national identity and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.
Call Number: Available in printISBN: 9780743258074Publication Date: 2004-06-01
Benjamin Franklin by
"This highly informative work focuses on Ben Franklin's career as a writer, printer, and publisher. Over 150 color illustrations of his rare books, booklets, and ephemera are featured."
Call Number: Available in printISBN: 9781584561873Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Benjamin Franklin by
The first extensively illustrated book documenting Franklin's life and work--a must-have for any Franklin enthusiast. Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World examines the many facets of America's most extraordinary founding father. Politician, diplomat, scientist, printer, and civic improver, Franklin influenced every aspect of American life, from his own time to the present. This book, designed to accompany the traveling Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibition celebrating Franklin's 300th birthday, includes essays by ten prominent scholars that offer an overview of Franklin's life and cover the full range of his interests and achievements, illustrated by more than 265 color images--portraits, manuscripts, drawings, maps, paintings, engravings, and a plethora of Franklin's possessions, from teacups to printing equipment. This comprehensive guide, combining new scholarship with unique images--many of which have never been exhibited before--will be a must-have for anyone interested in Franklin.
Call Number: Oversize E302.6 .F8 B485 2005 & ebookISBN: 9780300107999Publication Date: 2005-11-11
Draw the Lightning Down by
Most of us know--at least we've heard--that Benjamin Franklin conducted some kind of electrical experiment with a kite. What few of us realize--and what this book makes powerfully clear--is that Franklin played a major role in laying the foundations of modern electrical science and technology. This fast-paced book, rich with historical details and anecdotes, brings to life Franklin, the large international network of scientists and inventors in which he played a key role, and their amazing inventions. We learn what these early electrical devices--from lights and motors to musical and medical instruments--looked like, how they worked, and what their utilitarian and symbolic meanings were for those who invented and used them. Against the fascinating panorama of life in the eighteenth century, Michael Brian Schiffer tells the story of the very beginnings of our modern electrical world. The earliest electrical technologies were conceived in the laboratory apparatus of physicists; because of their surprising and diverse effects, however, these technologies rapidly made their way into many other communities and activities. Schiffer conducts us from community to community, showing how these technologies worked as they were put to use in public lectures, revolutionary experiments in chemistry and biology, and medical therapy. This story brings to light the arcane and long-forgotten inventions that made way for many modern technologies--including lightning rods (Franklin's invention), cardiac stimulation, xerography, and the internal combustion engine--and richly conveys the complex relationships among science, technology, and culture.
Call Number: Available in print and ebookISBN: 9780520939851Publication Date: 2003-10-14
A Great Improvisation by
In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin-seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French-convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy.When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of l778; and helped to negotiate the peace of l783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man.In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.
Call Number: Available in printISBN: 9780805066333Publication Date: 2005-04-02
Runaway America by
Scientist, abolitionist, revolutionary: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, the talented young historian David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. But Runaway America does much more than revise our image of a beloved founding father. Finding slavery at the center of Franklin's life, Waldstreicher proves it was likewise central to the Revolution, America's founding, and the very notion of freedom we associate with both. Franklin was the sole Founding Father who was once owned by someone else and was among the few to derive his fortune from slavery. As an indentured servant, Franklin fled his master before his term was complete; as a struggling printer, he built a financial empire selling newspapers that not only advertised the goods of a slave economy (not to mention slaves) but also ran the notices that led to the recapture of runaway servants. Perhaps Waldstreicher's greatest achievement is in showing that this was not an ironic outcome but a calculated one. America's freedom, no less than Franklin's, demanded that others forgo liberty. Through the life of Franklin, Runaway America provides an original explanation to the paradox of American slavery and freedom.
Call Number: Available in printISBN: 9780809083145Publication Date: 2004-08-18
Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (Links to an external site.) (1778), Wikimedia Commons
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
- The Benjamin Franklin TercentenaryThe 300th-year anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth (1706-2006) marked the national celebration honoring the life and enduring legacy of one of our most remarkable founding fathers.
Explore this site to find out about the celebration, to learn about the traveling library exhibition Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World, to investigate the interactive exhibition timeline, to find an array of educational materials, to learn about Franklin’s material world, to read what Ben says, and more...
The legacy of Franklin's 300th birthday is being continued by Franklin & Marshall College.
ANB Online
- American National Biography This link opens in a new windowThe American National Biography includes more than 17,400 men and women whose lives have shaped the nation. Updated quarterly.