Franklin starts writing his autobiography in 1771, addressing it to his “Dear Son” and beginning with his family history. He traces it back three hundred years to Ecton in Northamptonshire, England, and then brings it to his father Josiah’s arrival in New England to escape religious persecution. Josiah and his second wife, Abiah, settle in Boston with Franklin and his siblings. Franklin is quickly identified as intelligent but does not do well in school: he is told he must take up a trade. He strongly dislikes his father’s trade, tallow chandlery and soap boiling, and tries out a few others before being apprenticed to his brother James, a printer. He enjoys this trade and spends his leisure time perfecting his own writing.
James and Franklin do not get along; so, Franklin and his friend John Collins run away to Philadelphia. There Franklin gets work with a printer named Keimer, with whom he has a pleasant enough relationship.
The Governor of the province, Sir William Keith, is impressed by Franklin and offers to help convince Franklin’s father that he ought to get his own shop. However, Josiah thinks Franklin is too young and tells him he must spend time working hard at the trade before he will assist. Franklin agrees and hopes this will happen in the future. In the meantime, he has a falling out with Collins, who is often drunk. Franklin worries about paying back the money of his father’s friend Vernon, who had given it to Franklin for safekeeping: unbeknownst to Vernon, Franklin had loaned to Collins.
Franklin courts a young woman named Miss Read and enjoys conversing about poetry and philosophy with other young men in the town. One man, James Ralph, decides to accompany Franklin to London, where Franklin will continue to study the printing trade and meet influential men to whom Keith had promised to introduce him via letters. Keith proves faithless in this regard, but Franklin secures a job at Watts, a reputable printinghouse.
In London, where he resides for eighteen months, Franklin works hard and enjoys the amusements of the town, although he and Ralph also dissolve their friendship. He decides to return to Philadelphia to be a clerk at his friend Denham’s store. This partnership is advantageous but short-lived: Denham dies of illness and Franklin has to go back to Keimer’s shop.
Franklin finds that Keimer only wants him back to train the other young men working there, which Franklin is fine with for awhile. He befriends the others and excels at the trade, becoming more skilled than the other printers in town. One of the young men, Hugh Meredith, proposes they open their own shop with his father’s aid, and Franklin agrees.
The two men take a house and boarders and set up their shop. They start off small but make a good reputation for themselves. Franklin forms the Junto, a mutual improvement group of young men who discuss philosophy and practice the art of conversation.
The business grows; Franklin and Meredith acquire a newspaper. Franklin dissolves the partnership with Meredith and procures better investors. He opens a stationer’s shop, begins to pay off his debt, and marries Miss Read. He looks to his first public project, a subscription library. Here the manuscript breaks off; Franklin then returns to it where he left off, first including a few letters from prominent men exhorting him to finish it because he led a remarkable life and has wisdom to offer readers.
Franklin accounts for the founding of the library and returns to how successful his business was. In terms of leisure, he was abstemious: he only read and spent no time in taverns or gambling. Franklin then explicates the plan he conceived for moral perfection: a list of thirteen virtues he wants to master. He plans to take a week for each; they include temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. The task is not easy, but he is pleased with his efforts.
A few of Franklin's major works achieve success during this time, such as Poor Richard’s Almanack and his newspaper, both of which encourage their readers to practice industry, wisdom, and virtue. He studies languages and leaves official religious sects for Deism (though he admits to an admiration of the oratory skills of George Whitefield).
Franklin's public persona also begins to grow, with his first public position being the Clerk of the General Assembly in Pennsylvania. He begins to get involved with the affairs of the city: reorganizing the city watch; starting a fire department, hospital, library, and Academy; cleaning and paving the roads; and getting the Quaker Assembly to establish a militia. He works on many scientific experiments, earning accolades and honors. There are other posts he accepts, such as Justice of the Peace and a burgess in the Assembly. His main frustration is with Pennsylvania’s Proprietors, who refuse to pass defense spending bills if their estates are taxed.
In 1754 the British go to war against France and the Indians, with the colonists begrudgingly aiding their British leaders. Franklin proposes the Albany Plan, which promotes intercolonial unity, but the tenets are too progressive for most. He is instrumental in getting supplies for the military, he has a command on the frontier, and he earns the respect of the British, though he has doubts about the soldiers’ and leaders’ abilities. He works with the Governor and is eventually sent, along with his son, to London as a representative of the Assembly. There he hears from Lord Granville mocking words about the colonists’ lack of understanding of who is truly in charge (the King) and learns that the new governor, Capt. Denny, helped secure passage of a tax bill in the face of the Proprietors’ opposition. They turn him out of office even though a report reveals there was nothing unfair or illegitimate about the collection of the tax.
This is where Franklin’s work ends; it is unfinished.
