| Title | Franklin the Altruist and his “Good Works” (1730-1768) |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Gary D. German (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0470.05 |
| Landing page | http://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0470/chapters/10.11647/obp.0470.05 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Gary D. German |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Long abstract | The discussion in the previous chapter clearly demonstrates that Franklin’s numerous philanthropic activities were expressions of his sincere desire to “do good” in an effort to improve the lot of the lower ranks of society. As we have seen, this outlook was inherited from the early Puritan activist teachings of Reverend Cotton Mather, whom Franklin knew personally.By 1730, Franklin had acquired substantial business experience and, thanks to his engagement in the Pennsylvania Assembly, had accumulated political connections that were to serve him well in the decades that followed. With his newspaper now “the only one in this and the neighboring provinces,” his financial situation improved considerably. As he himself observed, “after getting the first hundred pound, it is easier to get the second, money itself being of a prolific nature.” As shown in Chapter 3, between 1730 and 1748 Franklin became progressively less involved in the daily management of his newspaper, which he entrusted to the capable hands of his most gifted printer and business associate, David Hall.This left him time to devote himself to the study of natural philosophy and to undertake a wide range of projects aimed at improving the lives of his fellow citizens, expanding access to knowledge, and cultivating his own intellectual development. The purpose of this section is therefore to present some of his best-known initiatives and inventions. These include the founding of the Junto; his scientific experiments on electricity (undertaken in part to better understand the nature of God); the establishment of the first public hospital; the first fire department and, most importantly for our purposes, his promotion of educational initiatives as instruments of social betterment and political freedom: public lending libraries, the founding of the Philadelphia Academy (later the University of Pennsylvania), and the American Philosophical Society. His Reformed Mode of Spelling was an integral part of these latter undertakings. |
| Print length | 22 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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Gary D. (Manchec) German is a dual French and American national. Born in Paris, he was raised in a multilingual household with family roots in Finistère, Lancashire, North Wales, and the United States (Massachusetts and Virginia). He holds two PhDs (in Breton dialectology and in the sociolinguistics/linguistics of Welsh English) and an Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (English sociolinguistics). He is Emeritus Professor of English at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, where he taught English phonology and grammar, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics from 1999 to 2018. He has been a member of the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (UBO) for over forty-five years. In this capacity, he taught Breton historical phonology, Breton dialectology and Middle Welsh literature. Previously, he taught English language and linguistics at the Universities of Nantes, Poitiers as well as French and English at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.