The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin **1/2

By Gordon S. Wood.
Published by Penguin Press in New York, 2004.
246 pages.

The title speaks of an Americanization.  One of the  main thesis is that the Benjamin Franklin we know now, was not always thought about in the same way as we do now.  The man, legends, and myths that we know now did not become popularized and well spread to the middle of the 19th century.

For starters we know Franklin as a self made man who toiled hard at manual labor in his printing and newspaper business, which is true, but he spent over half his life as a gentleman and gave up manual labor as a relatively young man.  But the American myth only speaks of his hard work and toil.  His later gentlemanly stature would not be considered a very American way of life. The life style of the 'gentleman' was a very old world and European concept.  More on that subject below.

The book also speaks and discusses the class structure of the colonies and of England and Europe.  Franklin DID start out poor and he WAS a self made man, but he craved and strived for the gentleman lifestyle and eventually attained it.  He was an educated man, albeit self-educated.  His indisputable genius was a gift and was strengthened by his own efforts at self-education.

The concept of the "Gentlemen" was that a person should not toil manually and should lead a luxurious and idle life.  This luxury allowed for the gentleman or the aristocracy to have time to do serious thinking, and  be involved with the politics (and power of course) of the day.  The self rationalization was that a few intelligent, well intentioned men should run the country (implying that government was not work for the lower class, undereducated people). Not exactly an American ideal, yet this is what Franklin strived for.

This discussion of the class differences took a good third of the book and was very interesting.  There was a new rich middle class (a la Franklin) who became rich through business and the work world.  These people were frowned upon by the aristocracy as inferiors.  These "middle' people strived to be gentlemen, but were not accepted by the aristocracy.  They were considered crass and undereducated.  Franklin was well aware of this and was careful to develop his gentleman status so as not to appear crass.  Eventually he was accepted, so his carefulness had payed off.

Another large part of the book involved Franklin's role as a diplomat.  That was his major job and contribution to the Revolutionary war.  He spent so much time in England prior to the war and France during the war that he spent the majority of his older age in Europe.  He was barely ever in the colonies, though he did come back at the during the most momentous parts of the Revolution.

This long period away from the colonies made him unpopular in the colonies.  In fact, for a long time, Franklin was a loyalist (to the King of England) and his role was to convince the powers that be in England that the colonies loved the king and it was just that they wanted representation.  This was not the case.  The colonies were ready for revolt.  Being away so long from the colonies (almost 20 years in England) was out of touch with what was happening in the colonies.

He had many friends in England and he really loved it there, perhaps more than he loved his native American colony of Pennsylvania.  After all, he was allowed and encouraged to circulate in aristocratic crowds.  He was also considered the "expert" about the colonies, though obviously, he really wasn't aware of current feelings and events in the colonies. Meanwhile he was making enemies in the colonies because he was away for so long and people were not trusting him. All went well for him, but the rift between the colonies and England became greater and greater.  Finally, the more and more belligerent Parliament of England took him to task and he was insulted by them. That is the point at which he turned into a revolutionary after all the work he had done to help his Mother England

He went back to the colonies.  And then he became a diplomat and was sent to France to help get their aid in the Revolution.  He was loved in France, but his fellow diplomats were jealous of the attention he received, and he continued to make enemies at home.  But he was the only one who could get along with the French government (There was some distrust against the French since only a couple of decades earlier, there had been a war against the French).  The king often would only talk to Franklin.  This made some colonists think that he was in collusion with the French and a traitor, but it was clear that the French never would have helped the colonists with out Franklin

When he came back to the colonies after the war, he was NOT celebrated and was relatively poorly treated, even though he is considered to be one of the founding fathers.  Not till after his death 50 some years later was he truly appreciated, and that was more for his legend and his myth than for what he actually accomplished during the war.  It was sort of a sad ending for our beloved Franklin.

Overall, the book had some excellent discussions like those mentioned above, though I would have liked to see more details of his life.  The kite incident was only referred to and not described.  Since there are so many different stories about that incident, it would have been nice to actually know exactly what happened.  Of course, that was not a focus of the book, but it would have still been nice if it had more details like that.

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