Happy Birthday to one of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin! Hugely instrumental in the building of this great City of Brotherly Love, Benjamin Franklin could simply be given the titles of statesman, scientist and inventor. But Franklin’s resume is extensive and many of his impressive hats should be praised, such as: publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, author of Poor Richard’s Almanac, member of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, influential signer of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Postmaster General, Abolitionist, and American Commissioner to Paris.

To really understand why most Philadelphians, if not all Americans, consider Benjamin Franklin our dearest Founding Father, one only needs to read his own autobiographical tale. Just a year after Benjamin Franklin’s death in 1790, his autobiography, entitled “Memoires De La Vie Privee,” was published in Paris in 1791. Two years later, the first English translation, “The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Originally Written By Himself,” was published in London in 1793. Known today simply as “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” this slice of American history was originally written for Franklin’s son William, then the Governor of New Jersey. As a historical journal presented from father to son.

The autobiography portrays a fascinating picture of life in Philadelphia, as well as Franklin’s shrewd observations on the literature, philosophy and religion of America’s Colonial and Revolutionary periods. Franklin wrote the first five chapters of his autobiography while living in England in 1771, then resumed it again thirteen years later (1784-85) while living in Paris and later in 1788 when he returned to the United States. Franklin ends the account of his life in 1757 when he was 51 years old.  Although he died in 1790,  Franklin chose not to include his later 30 years in his autobiography.

Considered to be the greatest autobiography produced in Colonial America, so many of Franklin’s reasonings and observations are still applicable in today’s complex society.