William Saunders
February 10, 2009
Discovering America
Benjamin Franklin Essay
Benjamin Franklin has influenced American technology and lifestyles by using his proficiencies and intelligence to conduct numerous experiments, arrive at theories, and produce inventions that are still used in modern day society. Franklin's scientific and analytical mind enabled him to generate many long lasting achievements that contributed to the development and refinement of modern technology. Franklin also shows from a sociological standpoint the possibilities for economic mobility in colonial America. He himself arrived in Philadelphia at 17 years old with no money to his name. Driven to make something of himself he states, “I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken on board privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home. (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin) From those beginnings he worked his way up to being a successful printer, a talented inventor and a Founding Father of America. According to Mary J. Fowler, "He personified the ideal of the self-made man, and his rise from obscurity to eminence exemplified the American dream" (Great Americans page 32). Christopher Looby adds, "The study of Franklin's image for the past two centuries shows that his legacy had a distinctive place in American culture" (Benjamin Franklin page 85).
Franklin was not only one of the Founding Fathers of the United Stats of America but he was also a leading author and printer, political theorist, politician, diplomat, inventor, but most importantly a scientist. One of Franklin's most famous and notable experiments was his kite and lightning experiment. He first set out to establish if lightning was a form of electricity. With his kite, Franklin drew lightning down to the ground, thus determining that it was a form of electricity.
The most important concepts of his experiments were the existence...