Ben Franklin Self Made Man Essay

Benjamin Franklin as a Self-Made Man
The story of Franklin as the self-made man begins with him being the first man who rose from poverty to prominence, and was the most important black American leader. No one else in American history started out so low and gradually ended up so high. After Franklin no man could claim to be self-made without producing his own unlikely beginnings and becoming a prominent man. His story as a self-made man began with his interest and talents as a writer. In his Autobiography he talks about his path to prosperity “one who would thrill later generations even as they misinterpreted’ (Perkins). The first page explains that the future generations might take interest in his life in account of having emerged from the state of “affluence and same degree of reputation in the world” (Perkins). Franklin the printer and self-made man became a figure of American History. He was also unique in the way that he followed 13 virtues that are listed in his autobiography as: (Temperance, silence, order, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, claimless, tranquility, chasisity, and Humidity).

His philosophies and principles in his autobiography are examples of the American dream that explain a rag to riches story. He was often refereed to as the Electric Ben Franklin. He was commercially successful, involved with the public good, a great communicator, and man of science and technology who found solutions to the real problems. Franklin was the epitome of the Enlightenment during the eighteen-century. His type of behavior demonstrated the fundamental concepts of the Age of reason which was “faith in the reality of the world as revealed to the senses, distrust of the mystical or mysterious confidence in the attainment of progress by education and humanitarianism that provide solutions to all human problems”