Son of a candle merchant, Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts; he is the youngest of a family of 17 children. In 1723, he settled as a printer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1727, he created a reading and discussion club, the Junto, and in 1731 founded the first library in the American colonies, the Library Company of Philadelphia. From 1733, Franklin published L’Almanach du bonhomme Richard , which would be one of his greatest editorial successes. This almanac, which was translated and republished many times in France, contains weather forecasts, proverbs, sayings and advice of all kinds, for which Franklin will be known and appreciated. In 1753, he received a medal from the Royal Society in London for his work on electricity and his invention of the lightning rod.
From 1768 to 1774, he settled in the English capital, where he was an agent for several colonies, notably Pennsylvania. He returned to Philadelphia in 1775, where he sat in the Continental Congress. He was a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence the following year. Also in 1776, he became postmaster for the new United States. In the fall of 1776, he was sent to France to defend the interests of the United States at Versailles and to obtain financial, material and, if possible, military assistance from Louis XVI. In France, where he is known for his scientific works, published in French from 1773, in particular those on lightning, he truly becomes an icon. In 1782, he was one of the American negotiators of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the War of Independence. In 1787, at the age of 81, he sat in the Constituent Convention of Philadelphia. He died in this same city in 1790.
Printer, writer, inventor, scientist, bibliophile, demographer, journalist, diplomat and politician, Franklin, whose life spanned the entire 18 th century, is truly one of America's most talented and prolific revolutionaries. He is one of America's most beloved Founding Fathers, his name has been given to counties, bridges, highways and a university, and his portrait appears on the $100 bill.