I just finished reading this autobiography. My first thought is that the beginning of the book was much more interesting to me than then the latter two parts. I found HOW Franklin became who he was much more interesting than when he was who he was. The politics of the French and Indian War setting up the prelude to the American Revolutionary War weaved in and out of varying degrees of intriguing for me.
Here are some of the notes I made while reading, the first part of my notes was handwritten and I can’t find the papers so it might seem a bit into the story:
– Osborne and Franklin making a pact when they die to visit the other to tell them about the afterlife and Osborne not keeping his promise is sad but also probably led to Franklin’s deism.
– Recipients of mail having to pay for the delivery is wild
– Franklin saying that women should be educated must have been a huge thing back in the day and probably a step forward for equality. Even though he says it because men. But ultimately what he’s saying is women can do what men can’t.
– “The Scholars Encreasing fast, the House was soon found too small, and we were looking out for a Piece of Ground properly situated, with Intention to build, when Providence*” Franklin scratching out Fortune for Providence is very interesting to me.
– Franklin making magic squares and circles during assembly meetings at 45 years old is so funny
– Ben Franklin calling the native Americans savages is crazy. I understand they were drinking a lot of rum but could you imagine what their people were going through? Franklin blaming the Indian traders trying to make a profit doesn’t address the heart of the problem which is the colonizers treating them like “savages” and then adding fuel to the fire by supplying drink to the traders.
– Franklin’s influence was crazy. The fact people would be like does Franklin subscribe to it? If not, then no shows how far he came from being a poor print maker.
– Dude Ben Franklin literally BUILT Philadelphia. Fire house, non-religious church, militia, paving streets, school, and even the first freaking HOA is crazy.
– The line “but such mistakes are not new. History is full of the errors of states and princes” goes hard
– “But I think the Practice (debating) was not wise, for in the Course of my Observation, these disputing, contradicting and confuting People are generally unfortunate in their Affairs. They get Victory sometimes, but they never get Good Will, which would be of more use to them.”
– It’s very interesting how Franklin has a rosy retrospective of past events. He always looks back and remembers things as better than they were.
– Franklin not recounting the kite experiment writing it off as already recorded just for the recording to be subpar is such a Franklin thing to do
– James Ralph becoming a decently known poet is pretty cool
by Infamcus