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American Literature Videos 58 videos

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ELA 11 2.8a: Benjamin Franklin 37 Views


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Description:

Benjamin Franklin was a true Renaissance man, so fitting his whole life into an autobiography must have been quite the task. But if anyone was up to it, it was the man himself.


Transcript

00:01

No Uh ben franklin He was on the upgrade list

00:05

for flights he hadn't even booked He won the lifetime

00:08

achievement award twice His blood smelled like cologne Benjamin franklin

00:13

was the most interesting man in the world All right

00:16

so maybe he wasn't that interesting but the spectacle Ben

00:19

was an amazing guy And fortunately for you he left

00:22

behind an autobiography detailing all of his exploits Not only

00:26

is this text a great early example of an autobiographical

00:29

work and an important addition to the eighteenth century historical

00:33

record but it gives us the low down on how

00:35

benjamin franklin became such an awesome dude Well born in

00:38

boston in seventeen oh six Ben loved books from the

00:41

beginning it was obvious he was destined for a career

00:44

as a printer Unfortunately his first job with his older

00:47

brother didn't work out so well so he booked it

00:50

unintended to philadelphia Well after working as a printer for

00:53

several people then went into business for himself he printed

00:57

a newspaper that was high tech back in those days

01:00

he also founded a debating society called june toe with

01:04

their powers combined they formed a subscription library you know

01:07

Kind of like go shmoop does not content with what

01:09

he achieved so far been set out to make himself

01:12

a better person which doesn't pay as well as printing

01:14

but you know to each his own ben came up

01:17

with a list of virtues and work every day to

01:19

personally achieve and maintain them for choose you still do

01:22

that Not so much Well in his spare time he

01:25

wrote poor richard's almanac and help the bruto found a

01:28

fire department but ben didn't stop there He became the

01:31

general assembly clerk in pokes master for philadelphia in the

01:35

june toe founded the university of pennsylvania He also worked

01:38

to establish america's first public hospital because nobody likes encountering

01:42

dead bodies in the street You don't We're talking about

01:45

totally killed person's appetite with the french and indian war

01:48

on the horizon been introduced to plan to unite the

01:50

american colonies and they weren't united at that point seriously

01:55

Well when that didn't work out he threw himself into

01:57

a new project building up pennsylvania's defense's Oh and on

02:01

his lunch break he conducted the experiments on electricity that

02:04

would earn him a place with the royal society it's

02:07

A hoity toity group You'll notice that we haven't even

02:09

mentioned the role benjamin franklin played in the american revolution

02:12

or his days as a diplomat in france that's because

02:15

ben didn't write about those areas of his life seriously

02:18

man left big old chunks of his career out of

02:20

his autobiography Maybe he just had too much stuff swimming

02:22

around inside that gigantic melon of his Remember it all

02:25

Not that it matters when you can get the gist

02:27

of what kind of founding father franklin was from his

02:30

autobiography As it exists He was an inventor he was

02:33

an organizer He was interested in pretty much everything except

02:38

sitting on a spot playing video games He also had

02:41

a special gift for getting ahead while also making life

02:44

better for everyone around him Benjamin franklin ladies and gentlemen

02:47

the man the myth the legend the spectacle model boys 00:02:53.083 --> [endTime] say

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