Pioneer 6 of 21 · 1706-1790

Benjamin Franklin

Contribution. Showed that lightning is electrical and invented the lightning rod, the first practical application of electricity. He also founded lasting institutions that gave others access to books and education, and helped draft the Declaration of Independence.

Factor coverage

Favorable entries (helped or barrier absent) and adverse entries (barrier or not overcome) by factor. Factor tags are this site's classification.

Biological00 Psychological00 Economic23 Societal10 Cultural00 Social32 Environmental00 Educational21 Technological00

Barriers faced

Factors	Statement
Educational Economic	Limited schooling. He was one of seventeen children of a Boston candle and soap maker. He started grammar school at 8, and at 10 his father took him out to work in the family shop.
Economic Social	A harsh apprenticeship. At 12 he signed indentures binding him to his brother James, a printer, until age 21. James often beat him, and Franklin eventually ran away to Philadelphia.
Economic Social	A broken promise. Pennsylvania's governor, William Keith, encouraged him to go to London to buy printing equipment, but the promised support never came. Franklin worked in London printing houses for about eighteen months before returning.

What helped

Factors	Statement
Educational Economic	Books through his trade. His father chose printing for him because of his love of reading, which gave him daily access to printed material.
Social Educational	A network of peers. He formed the Junto, a discussion club of tradesmen of moderate means seeking self-improvement.
Economic	Time to think. He retired from his printing business in 1748, which gave him leisure for science.
Social	A door-opener in London. Peter Collinson, a Fellow of the Royal Society, gave the Library Company a glass tube for electrical experiments. Franklin reported his results in letters to Collinson, who arranged their publication in London in 1751 as Experiments and Observations on Electricity.
Social Societal	Recognition. The Royal Society at first judged his letters not worth printing in its Transactions. After a French experimenter confirmed in May 1752 that lightning is electrical, the Society awarded him the Copley Medal in 1753, its highest scientific honor, and Harvard and Yale gave him honorary degrees the same year.

Notes

Factors	Statement
Educational Social	A library. In 1731 he persuaded Junto members to pool their money for books none could afford alone, founding the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first subscription library in America.
Societal Social	A fire company. In 1736 he organized the Union Fire Company, Philadelphia's first fire protection society.
Social	A learned society. In 1743 he founded the American Philosophical Society.
Educational	An academy. His 1749 pamphlet Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth led to an academy that opened in 1751 to children of the gentry and working class alike, which became the University of Pennsylvania.
Cultural Economic	Sharing his inventions. He declined a governor's offer of a patent on his stove, writing that because people benefit from others' inventions, they should share their own freely.
Societal Cultural	Slavery. Franklin enslaved people for much of his life, and his newspaper carried advertisements for slave sales. He became an outspoken opponent of slavery late in life. In 1787 he became president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and his last public act was a 1790 petition to Congress asking for an end to slavery and the slave trade.
none	Not overcome. None major among the barriers he faced. He died in Philadelphia on 17 April 1790, aged 84.

Pattern summary

Element	In this case
Door-opener	Peter Collinson
Knowledge source	Books through the printing trade, the Junto, the Library Company
Institutional support	Royal Society recognition, after initial dismissal
Built on recent work	Electrical apparatus and accounts sent by Collinson
Setback overcome	Two years of schooling, harsh apprenticeship, broken promise of support
Barrier not overcome	None major
Related barriers	Children out of school, poverty

Sources

Also relevant: Bell, A., Chetty, R., Jaravel, X., Petkova, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2019). Who becomes an inventor in America? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(2), 647-713. All references