Benjamin Franklin
... For my summer reading assignment, I choose to read the book, Benjamin Franklin : An American Life, by Walter Isaacson. Benjamin Franklin, from the information I have come across, was an amazing person. The information that I do know about Benjamin Franklin is he was an inventor as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence. ... As a young child, Benjamin Franklin showed signs that he was above average and a genius in the making. ... ”(19) Instead, at the age of 10, Benjamin went to work at a candle and soap shop owned by his father. By the age of 12, Benjamin had had enough of working there, so his father sent him to apprentice for his older brother James Franklin, 21, who had trained in England as a printer. Benjamin’s brother forced him to sign a nine -year contract as his apprentice, instead of the normal seven-year contract. Benjamin with hesitation signed the papers ( 21). While Benjamin was his brother’s apprentice, his brother would beat him. When Benjamin was 17 years old, James’s paper, Courant, was in trouble with the law. ... In response, the paper was to be printed by Benjamin Franklin. In order for this to happen, Benjamin was no longer an apprentice, and his contract was publicly terminated. But, in secret, Benjamin was forced to sign another that he would still be the apprentice, and carry out the rest of his term (33-34). Franklin had had enough of his brother’s ways and decided to run away. ... Benjamin wanted to go to New York and leave his native Boston because he wanted a place that “offered the chance to become self-made success”(35) Franklin could not find work in New York as a printing- apprentice, and a printer suggested that he go to Philadelphia to find work (37). Franklin walked all the way from New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Franklin did find work in Philadelphia by working for a printer named Samuel Keimer (38). (At the age of 23, Franklin had his own printing business, in Philadelphia, and was publisher of the respected Pennsylvania Gazette (52-56).