The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin wrote one of the most intelligent and purposeful autobiographies in history. Franklin emerged from the American Revolution one of the most famous men in the world. An inventor/entrepreneur/publisher/writer with a keen sense of self-promotion, Franklin was spectacularly successful at using his celebrity as a platform from which to share the wisdom collected from a life of remarkable achievement. Perhaps the most notable aspect of his memoir is the fact that it combined simple language and personal examples with brilliant, often deceptively complex personal philosophy. The result is a truly “democratic” literary work in that it offers something beneficial for everyone.
Keywords: Benjamin Franklin, autobiography, American Revolution, memoir
Self-Promotion to Self-Improvement: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography has long been considered the standard for memoirs on both sides of the Atlantic. Franklin emerged from the Revolutionary period something of an international celebrity, the most famous man in the former American colonies, and thus it was virtually assured that an account of his life would find a receptive audience. The man who had engineered the alliance that helped America win independence, discovered electricity and published the most famous almanac in the Atlantic world had much that was worthwhile to impart. Franklin’s account of his life is notable for pithy maxims and moral assertions, many of which have become bywords for American ideas of thrift and industry. Franklin viewed himself as a paragon of virtue in a new republic, the citizens of which he saw as builders of an entirely new moral value system. And while his autobiography is a sincere and well-meaning attempt to pass along his beliefs and practices, Franklin is clearly playing on his fame. As such, his autobiography is an attempt to leverage notoriety in order to promote a new moral ethos to a people going about the business of building a nation.
One of the most interesting things about Franklin’s autobiography is the subtlety with which he addresses moral themes. He is masterful at making two points while seeming to emphasize one. In the second chapter, Franklin appears to be making a point about parsimony. However, a closer reading indicates that pride is the specific target of his wit:
“A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have too little” (Franklin, 1909, 21).
Here Franklin questions the motive of the man who, though having minimal resources, is apt to
be freer with his money than a wealthy individual. But rather than being philanthropically
motivated, such a man is more inclined to protect his ego. Appearance and affectation trumps sincerity, a reminder to the reader that upright individual values and a clean conscience are of paramount importance.
Yet Franklin was the product of his times, prone to the conceits and prejudices shared by others of his era, a man of contradictions. As an adult, Franklin became a Deist, as had many of America’s “Founding Fathers,” because he was more concerned with reason, believing that it negated the faith and “mystery” of organized religion. Raised an Episcopalian - evidence of the influence of the English church in his early life - Franklin came to reject the idea that body and blood could be transformed into bread and wine. Though a man of reason, he was, at the same time vulnerable to prejudice generalization:
“The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use; and whatever use he designed anything for, that use it should always be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said, ‘Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with; and it must be so’” (Franklin, 1909, 103).
Franklin follows this statement by asserting that rum could be the means by which the Indians, “these savages” as he calls them, may be “extirpated” (103). Franklin was, in many ways, the prophet of the new nation he had helped bring into being, a man who gave form and definition to what would become America’s “mission” in the world. In that role, he sought to protect and promote the interests of his country as well as to advise and guide its citizens in leading virtuous lives.
There is equality and balance to Franklin’s admonitions: many are quite simple and straightforward while others evince a sophistication and depth, challenging the reader to both reflect and interpret. Franklin is an inexhaustible source of short, easily understandable and readily applicable maxims, such as: “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve” (Franklin, 1909, 38). But just when one becomes comfortable with such simplicity, Franklin delves into much deeper waters:
“The mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct” (Franklin, 1909, 38?).
It is as though Franklin, having served as a midwife for the birth of modern Democracy, is determined to be democratic with his readers. In this sense, he is indeed a benevolent mentor-figure because there is something for everyone, and something from which everyone may benefit. Franklin seemed to understand that his best chance to reach a wide readership was to communicate both simply and through more sophisticated language.
As with any mentor, it is through example and the benefit of shared experience that Franklin passes on his moral lessons. The great genius of his autobiography lay in the understanding that the reader would be more willing to internalize his philosophy if it were presented as life experience, rather than mere sophistry. Franklin is happy to tell us, for instance, about the time his wife-to-be thought he looked “awkward” and “ridiculous” walking down the street with a loaf of bread under each arm while eating a third (Franklin, 1909, 21). It was in
this unassuming manner that Franklin first came to Philadelphia; young, short of funds and humbled. He writes of the Quakers who helped him, how he began to make his way in the world and, most importantly, about the discipline and personal habits that helped him succeed in new surroundings. Here again, one is struck by the fact that we are reading a story about a man who became successful by virtue of hard work and personal diligence, not through privilege or the expediency of personal contacts.
Thus, Franklin teaches by virtue of example. In one particularly notable example, Franklin uses personal experience to illustrate the worth of pragmatism. In 1732, Franklin wrote several pamphlets promoting a new minister, a Reverend Samuel Hemphill, whose sermons Franklin particularly liked. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Hemphill’s sermons were plagiarized. Franklin writes that the discovery was the source of “disgust” in the congregation, but he follows that observation with a remarkably enlightened comment, explaining that he “stuck by” Hemphill because Franklin “rather approv’d his giving us good sermons compos’d by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture” (Franklin, 1909, 83). Franklin the pragmatist teaches that, sometimes, the ends do justify the means.
Most would concede that Benjamin Franklin was a man ahead of his time in virtually every way, including as a writer. As an autobiographer, he used his fame and monumental personal reputation to gain the attention of his readers and his credibility to promote the intrinsic value of his life lessons. Ultimately, Franklin was a benevolent beneficiary of the public good, whose talent for self-promotion was invaluable as a means for furthering the cause of self-improvement.
References
Franklin, B. (1909). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York, N.Y: P.F. Collier
and Sons.
