Benjamin Franklin

Deborah Franklin encouraged her husband to visit a new school for enslaved and free Black children in Philadelphia. After his visit, Benjamin Franklin admitted that he had previously held a low opinion of the “natural Capacities of the black Race,” but observing the children at school had proven his prejudices wrong. He now knew they were “in every Respect equal to that of white Children.”

Benjamin Franklin and John Adams served the United States together as diplomats to France during the American Revolution, but they frustrated each other with their conflicting approaches to the job. Adams was impatient and did not recognize that Franklin’s popularity was an important asset in securing vital French support for the war effort.

An African slave in Boston, Onesimus, introduced Cotton Mather to the concept of inoculation, which meant fewer deaths in a smallpox epidemic. Franklin was an early proponent of inoculation but when smallpox struck Philadelphia he and Deborah delayed inoculating their son. Franky contracted smallpox and died. This extended scene from BENJAMIN FRANKLIN includes bonus material not in the final film.

In the decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin and his son William collaborated intimately to promote the British Empire in America. But when war broke out, their family, like countless others, was torn apart. Benjamin Franklin supported George Washington’s army and sided with the rebels—the Patriots. William Franklin, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, remained loyal to the King.

From 1733 to 1757, Franklin published Poor Richard’s Almanack, an annual bestseller in the colonies. In addition to weather predictions and astronomical observations, his almanac was notable for including aphorisms that combined wisdom with humor, philosophy with word play—an early example of a homespun American writing style that has continued through the generations.

Franklin made groundbreaking discoveries in his study of electricity. He wrote up his observations and experiments, which were published abroad and made him world-famous. He coined new terms—like “positive,” “negative,” “charge,” “conductor” and “battery.” And he proved that lightning was electrical in nature with his famous experiment in 1752 with a kite and a key.

As impasse threatened to derail the Constitutional Convention, Franklin worked to find common ground. In order to pass the proposed Constitution of the United States, the delegates agreed to several compromises—some tragic. On September 17, 1787, Franklin, who saw the new federal government as an experiment to be improved by successive generations, delivered a speech endorsing the Constitution.