An imagined portrait1706–1790
Franklin, who spread "time is money"
The way to wealth is simple. Time is money. Work diligently, young friend.Game 4 · Reconstruction; paraphrase; Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748)
Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston, then a British colony, and established himself as a printer in Philadelphia. Record
He made his money publishing a newspaper and Poor Richard's Almanack, and retired from the printing business in 1748. Record
He became known for his experiments with electricity. He called a charge-storing device made of glass and lead plates an 'electrical battery', and proposed pointed iron rods to protect against lightning (the lightning rod). Record
He signed the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787), and served as minister plenipotentiary to France from 1779 to 1785. Record
He is widely remembered for the words 'time is money' in 'Advice to a Young Tradesman', written in 1748. But the same words had already appeared in 1719 in the London magazine The Free-Thinker. Record
He was born in Boston on 17 January (by today's calendar). He was the fifteenth of the seventeen children of his father Josiah, who made candles and soap. By the old calendar (Old Style) then used in the British colonies, the date was 6 January. Record
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Project Gutenberg #148), lines 287–290, 338–340 Project Gutenberg · The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin FAQ' fi.edu · ushistory.org, 'Benjamin Franklin Timeline', 1706 ushistory.org (Old Style date)
At ten he left school to help in his father's candle shop. At twelve he was apprenticed to his brother James, a printer. Record
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, line 338 (At ten years old I was taken home) · The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin FAQ' (schooling) · The Autobiography, lines 485–486 (signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve) · ushistory.org 'Timeline', 1718
At seventeen, with his apprenticeship unfinished, he secretly left Boston and reached Philadelphia. All the money he had was a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. He wrote that he bought three rolls and walked through the streets with one under each arm, eating the third. Deborah Read, who later became his wife, saw him and thought he made a ridiculous figure. Record
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 893–898 · ushistory.org 'Timeline', 1723 · U.S. National Archives, 'Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania' National Archives · The Autobiography, lines 906–918 (a roll under each arm, and eating the other · a most awkward, ridiculous appearance) · ushistory.org edition of the Autobiography, p. 12 ushistory.org
In 1728 he set up a printing house with the printer Hugh Meredith. But Meredith's father could not pay all the money he had promised. Then his friends William Coleman and Robert Grace each came to him separately and offered to lend him the money he needed to take over the printing house alone. He wrote in his autobiography that when Meredith withdrew from the partnership, he borrowed half from each of the two friends and took over the printing house on his own. The autobiography dates this to around 1729, but the record ending the partnership is dated 14 July 1730. Record
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 1942–1952 · Papers of Benjamin Franklin, biographical note 'Meredith, Hugh' (withdrew from the partnership, 1730) Franklin Papers · ushistory.org 'Timeline', 1728 · The Autobiography, lines 2244–2262 · National Humanities Center, excerpt of Part 1 of the Autobiography nationalhumanitiescenter.org · 'Franklin's Accounts, 1730' (University of Delaware UDSpace; partnership dissolved 14 July) udspace.udel.edu
Under the name Richard Saunders he first published Poor Richard's Almanack. He edited the almanac himself through the 1758 edition, and wrote in his autobiography that it sold nearly ten thousand copies a year. Record
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 3355–3359 · U.S. National Archives, 'Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania' (Poor Richard's Almanac, 1733-58)
He published 'Advice to a Young Tradesman' under the name 'an old one'. In the same year he handed over the running of the printing house to David Hall and retired from business. He was forty-two. Record
'Advice to a young Tradesman', Works of the late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793), Wikisource Wikisource · History Carper, full text of the 1748 edition historycarper.com · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 4203–4221 · U.S. National Archives, 'Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania' (By 1748 … financial independence)
In a letter of 29 April to Peter Collinson in London, he called an electrical device made of glass panes with lead plates attached an 'electrical-battery'. The same letter also describes a wheel turned by electricity (the electrical jack). Record
Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London: E. Cave, 1751), Letter III, dated at the end April 29, 1749 — Project Gutenberg #45515 Project Gutenberg · U.S. National Park Service, 'Benjamin Franklin and Science' nps.gov (coined the terms battery…) · Etymonline 'battery' etymonline.com
In 'Opinions and Conjectures' (29 July) he proposed setting up iron rods, pointed like needles, on the tops of buildings to protect houses, churches and ships from lightning. Record
Experiments and Observations on Electricity, 'Opinions and Conjectures', PHILADELPHIA, July 29, 1750 (Gutenberg #45515) · The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin's Inventions' fi.edu
He is known to have flown a kite to collect electricity from a thundercloud. He made the experiment public in writing only four months later, in October, and did not say that he had done it himself, so the details of the experiment are still disputed. Debated
U.S. National Park Service, 'Benjamin Franklin and Science' (June 1752 · did not publicly mention the experiment until October … some scholars to doubt) · The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin FAQ' (1752 kite, not struck by lightning)
He printed 'The Way to Wealth', which gathers the proverbs he had put in the almanac over the years into a speech by 'Father Abraham', as the preface to the 1758 edition of the almanac. Record
Internet Archive, bibliographic note to The way to wealth; or, Poor Richard improved (first published in Poor Richard's almanac for 1758) Internet Archive · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 3370–3375 (compiled as the almanac's preface; the Autobiography gives the year as 1757) · Project Gutenberg #43855, text Project Gutenberg
He signed the American Declaration of Independence. In 1787 he attended the convention that drew up the Constitution as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and signed the Constitution too. Record
U.S. National Archives, 'Signers of the Declaration of Independence' National Archives · U.S. National Archives, 'Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania' · The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin FAQ' (signed … the Constitution (1787))
He presented his credentials as American minister plenipotentiary to France and served until 1785. In 1783, with John Jay and John Adams, he negotiated the Treaty of Paris, which ended the War of Independence. Record
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 'Benjamin Franklin' history.state.gov · U.S. National Archives, 'Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania' (sole commissioner to France (1779-85) … Treaty of Paris (1783)) · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Gutenberg #148, editor's chronology for 1782 and 1783
In a codicil to his will dated 23 June, he left £1,000 each to Boston and Philadelphia. The condition was that the money be lent at 5 percent a year to married artisans under 25 who had completed their apprenticeships, and that it be divided and spent after 100 years and after 200 years. Record
Text of Franklin's will and codicil constitution.org · Boston City Archives, 'Guide to the Franklin Fund records', historical note cityofboston.gov
He died in Philadelphia on 17 April, aged eighty-four. Record
The Franklin Institute, 'Benjamin Franklin FAQ' (died at age 84 on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia) · U.S. National Archives, 'Signers of the Declaration of Independence' (4/17/1790, 84)
When the bequest funds ended after 200 years, the Boston fund stood at about $4.5 million and the Philadelphia fund at about $2 million. The remaining money went to Boston's Franklin technical school (founded in 1908 with this fund and a gift from Andrew Carnegie; today the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology), Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, scholarships for students learning trades, and more. Record
HistoryNet, 'Ben Franklin's Gift that Keeps on Giving' (Stephan A. Schwartz, American History, 2009) historynet.com · Mental Floss (Jake Rossen, 20 August 2020) mentalfloss.com · Billy Penn (12 May 2023) billypenn.com · Boston City Archives, 'Guide to the Franklin Fund records' (Franklin Union, 1908) cityofboston.gov · the change of the school's name is from the school's announcement (2022, Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology) — Wikipedia used only as a guide
He wrote that someone who could earn ten shillings a day and idles away half the day has thrown away not only the money spent while idling but also the five shillings he could have earned. The piece urges young tradesmen to use their time carefully. Record · Paraphrase
'Advice to a Young Tradesman' (1748) — Works (1793), Wikisource · History Carper, 1748 edition
He wrote that money can beget money and its offspring can beget more. The more there is, he said, the more it grows every time it is turned over. He also designed his bequest funds on the arithmetic of accumulating interest. Record · Paraphrase
'Advice to a Young Tradesman' (1748), same passage · codicil to Franklin's will (1789) — constitution.org · Boston City Archives, note on the Franklin Fund
He wrote that the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market, and depends chiefly on two words: industry and frugality. In his autobiography he noted that he filled the blank spaces of the almanac chiefly with proverbs recommending these two things. Record · Paraphrase
'Advice to a Young Tradesman' (1748), closing passage · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, lines 3359–3366
In a 1749 letter he wrote that he was a little chagrined not yet to have produced anything useful to mankind. The following year, in 'Opinions and Conjectures', he proposed that knowing the properties of points could be used to protect buildings from lightning. Record · Paraphrase
Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Letter III (29 April 1749) and 'Opinions and Conjectures' (29 July 1750) — Gutenberg #45515 · The Franklin Institute, 'Inventions' · U.S. National Park Service, 'Benjamin Franklin and Science'
In 'The Way to Wealth' he wrote that leisure is time for doing something useful, and that the diligent man will obtain such leisure but the lazy man never. Record · Paraphrase
'The Way to Wealth' (1758) — Project Gutenberg #43855, lines 258–262 · americanliterature.com edition americanliterature.com
Remember that time is money.
Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on.
Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never.
Boston, where Franklin was born in the early eighteenth century, and Philadelphia, where he settled, were British colonies in North America. In the 1770s and 1780s, when he served as a diplomat, America fought its War of Independence against Britain, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
The bequest funds he left lasted for 200 years, until 1990, and were used for loans to young artisans and for technical education in the two cities. His face is still on the front of the U.S. $100 bill.
MythFranklin coined the phrase 'time is money'.
FactFranklin made the phrase widely known by using it in 'Advice to a Young Tradesman' in 1748, but the same words had already appeared on 18 May 1719 in issue 121 of the London magazine The Free-Thinker, in a story where a shoemaker's wife reminds her husband that 'time is money'.
The Free-Thinker, No. 121 (18 May 1719) — 1723 collected edition, vol. 3, Internet Archive Internet Archive · Quote Investigator, 'Time Is Money' (14 May 2010) quoteinvestigator.com