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 High Plains Chautauqua August 3-7, 2010 American Voices: Breaking the Mold |
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790) The most fascinatingly versatile of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin lived a rag-to-riches life marked by scientific achievement, exceptional community service, and unique leadership in the establishment of our Republic. At heart an innovator, the number, variety, and sheer usefulness of his contributions make him unique in American history. Many of us are familiar with Franklin’s “big” inventions – the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and the bifocal glasses, for instance. Lesser known perhaps, is his “outside the box” thinking. Whether in his business practices, his new way of funding civic projects, his innovative proposals for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, or his unique and effective approach to diplomacy, Franklin was an innovator unique in our history. Curious about everything, he could, in successive writings, advocate a diet based on fruits and vegetables, imagine transporting the mail – as well as military troops – by air, map the Gulf Stream, and redesign ships’ hulls for increased loads and efficiency. Clearly, Franklin was far, far more than just a man with a kite. Franklin was America’s most famous diplomat and the only one of our Founding Fathers to sign all four key documents of our new nation: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. From humble beginnings, Franklin became the most honored and best-known American in Europe, an ambassador whose simple dress and manner did little to hide a keen intelligence, a charming wit and enormous stamina – all of which he put at the service of his country. Franklin epitomized the emerging, American identity. The only Founding Father proudly rooted in the “middling” class, Ben rejected traditional, European values of birth and family as determiners of one’s future. With only two years of formal education, he became what Americans today call the “self-made” man, pulling himself up by values Americans have always cherished: hard work, frugality, ethical living, a life-long curiosity, and service to one’s community and nation. The mobility and ability to reinvent one’s life for which Americans are known today have their model in Franklin – a successful businessman, printer, writer, civic leader, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. Rejecting the constraints of a Puritan theology that often treated the examination of natural phenomena as religious heresy, Franklin believed that “the best way to serve God was by doing good for Man.” This new attitude led to his many scientific contributions, including the crucial discovery that lightning was electricity and its dangers could be lessened. In this, too, he represented a new type, a man as proud to be enlightened by science as by Revelation, a man unafraid to confront orthodox thinking in order to contribute to the public good. Thus did Franklin epitomize this new breed, this emerging personality we have come to call “American.” RECOMMENDED READING Chaplin, Joyce. The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius. Basic Books, 2006. Franklin, Benjamin. Autobiography.Yale Nota Bene, 2003. Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Simon and Schuster, 2003. Schiff, Stacy. A Great Improvisation: Ben Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Henry Holt, 2005. Wood, Gordon. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. Penguin Press, 2004. CHRISTOPHER LOWELL A native New Yorker, Chris has enjoyed a double career as both a French teacher and an actor. From Shakespeare to Arthur Miller, and from comedy to drama, Chris has had over 50 years of theatrical performance to prepare him for interpreting Benjamin Franklin. Today, he presents full time for business meetings, non-profits, schools and universities, libraries, museums, fund-raisers, even Chautauquas! Chris has presented Ben coast-to-coast and, bilingual in French, in Paris for the French government. A father and grandfather, Chris lives in Colorado Springs with Sue, his wife of 33 years. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
QUOTES “No man’s life, liberty, or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.” “Invest in knowledge because it always pays the best dividends.” “Here comes the Orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason!” “He who falls in love with himself shall have no rivals.” “Serving God is doing good to Man, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen.” TIMELINE
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