Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Jack-of-all-Trades (back when they were appreciated)

Including, but certainly not limited to: statesman and diplomat, printer, soapmaker, publisher, writer, inventor and patriot. With the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson, no other American has done so much so well.

As minister to France during the American Revolution, Franklin succeeded in not only gaining diplomatic recognition of the colonists' cause, but secured the financial and military assistance that enabled America to win the war.

He's the only one whose signature appears in all of four of the most important documents in US history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and the Constitution of the United States.

As an inventor he was responsible for the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, and many others. Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and Autobiography are still read today.

He established the Postal Service, helped in establishing Pennsylvania's first university as well as its first public hospital, and established the first public subscription library in the United States.

His fame extended beyond the Americas to Europe where the French statesman Count Honoré de Mirabeau called him "the sage whom two worlds claimed as their own."

For more information on this remarkable man, visit The Electric Franklin.

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