We don’t often think about Benjamin Franklin as an immigrant – but he was. In fact, it is one of the great American immigration stories and today marks the 300th anniversary of the day he arrived, penniless and alone, in his adopted city of Philadelphia.
He was born on January 17, 1706, to a poor family in the Massachusetts colony. His father was an English immigrant named Josiah Franklin, who worked as a candle and soap maker, and Benjamin was one of his sixteen children. He received only a rudimentary education before being put to work as an apprentice at the age of twelve with his brother James, who ran a printing company in Boston. But James was physically violent and young Ben decided to run away.
It was illegal. Under the apprenticeship system in effect at the time, an apprentice who ran away before the end of his service was breaking the law and runaways could be punished. stopped, imprisoned and even forced to serve additional time working for their masters. However, at the age of 17, Ben broke the law by fleeing Massachusetts for Pennsylvania, where he arrived by ship on October 6, 1723.
Pennsylvania was not only 300 miles from Boston, the Quaker City was also much more tolerant and cosmopolitan: it was destined to become the intellectual capital of the American colonies, thanks in large part to Franklin’s influence. In his famous AutobiographyFranklin recalled what it was like when he reached the shore of this new world:
I was dirty from my trip; my pockets were full of shirts and stockings, and I didn’t know anyone or where to look for lodging. I was tired from traveling, from rowing, from lack of rest, I was very hungry; and my entire stock of cash was one Dutch dollar…. I walked down the street, looking around until, near the market, I met a boy with bread. I had prepared many meals with bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went at once to the baker he had directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for some biscuit, with the intention of him we had in Boston; but it appears they were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three penny loaf and was told they didn’t have any. So, without considering or knowing the difference in money, or the lowest price, or the names of his bread, I asked him to give me three pennies of any kind. As a result he gave me three good puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but I took it and, having no room in my pockets, I left with a roll under each arm and ate the other. So I walked up Market Street…. I made… a most clumsy and ridiculous appearance.
Franklin managed to find work at a printing company, and through hard work and what we now call “networking,” he was able to build a reputation for himself. Eventually he became one of the most famous writers and editors in the American colonies. Along with his financial success, he also helped lead a wide variety of community projects: co-founding America’s first lending library, the first hospital, the first home insurance company, the first fire department volunteers and the country’s most prestigious intellectual institution, the American Philosophical Society. . He invented bifocals and the Franklin Stove. His experiments with electricity, culminating in the invention of the lightning rod, made him a world hero – and all before he became an important patriot leader. He was celebrated as “Doctor” Franklin, but he had virtually no formal education.
As a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Ben Franklin will always be considered one of the greatest statesmen, but he was also the first entrepreneurial hero. Her Autobiography, published after his death, became a classic among business leaders throughout the 19th century, and he remains one of the most popular heroes among entrepreneurs today. His book offered useful advice on how to become a successful businessman (for example, he urged entrepreneurs to make sure people see how busy you are) – but it also examined the virtues of entrepreneurship: the moral values that contribute to making a person a successful and successful business leader. He describes how he created a catalog of virtues:
I put under thirteen names of virtues everything that seemed necessary or desirable to me at the time, and I annexed to each a short precept which fully expressed the extent that I gave to its meaning. These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
- Temperance – Eat without getting bored; do not drink at elevation.
- Silence – Only talk about what will benefit others or yourself; avoid meaningless conversations.
- Order – Let all your things have their place; let each part of your business take its time.
- Resolution – Decide to do what you must; accomplish without fail what you resolve.
- Frugality – Do not spend anything except to do good to others or to yourself; that is, waste nothing.
- Industry – Do not waste time ; always be employed in something useful; remove all unnecessary actions.
- Sincerity – Do not use any hurtful deception; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.
- Justice – Do not wrong anyone by doing harm or by omitting the benefits which are your duty.
- Moderation – Avoid extremes; refrain from feeling the hurt as much as you think it deserves.
- Cleanliness – Do not tolerate any dirt on the body, clothing or home.
- Tranquility – Do not be disturbed by trifles, nor by common or inevitable accidents.
- Chastity – Rarely use veneration but for health or offspring; never to boredom, weakness or harm to your own peace or reputation or that of others.
- Humility – Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
This is an interesting list, because it is not one that, for example, the heroes of ancient Greek mythology would have written. There is no question here of defeating enemies or subduing the powerful. In The Aeneid, Virgil described Rome’s mission as follows: “to spare the vanquished, to break the proud in war.” Franklin’s list has nothing of the sort. This is a list of what the economist Dierdre McCloskey calls “bourgeois virtues”: industry, frugality, moderation. These are the virtues of the respectable businessman and the responsible citizen. And these are the moral elements of what we now call the American dream.
“(In) America,” Franklin later wrote, in an advice article For Europeans considering immigrating, “people don’t ask about a foreigner, What is it? But What can he do…? In short, America is the land of work, and by no means what the English call Lubberland… where it is said that the streets are paved with half-pecked bread, the houses are tiled with pancakes, and where the poultry flies. all roasted, shouting: Come and eat me! Hard work and dedication would be rewarded, and peace and diversity would prevail, Franklin believed, because America was a land of businessmen and entrepreneurs.
Ben Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia in October 1723 – with nothing to his name but his willingness to work – is the kind of story that will play out for centuries at places like Ellis Island. And his rise to economic success and national immortality would be just one of countless similar stories of the American dream come true.
Timothy Sandefur is vice president of legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute.
