A DANGEROUS ENGINE by AARON MONTANEZ-DELGADO

Citation

montaaar000_2 — 2024-03-29 03:59:36 UTC

Dash, Joan, and Dušan Petričić. A Dangerous Engine: Benjamin Franklin, from Scientist to Diplomat. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006.

Working for his father

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-03 05:21:21 UTC

Benjamin Franklin at the age of 10 was apprenticed by his father into his father's company. His dad's company consisted of making soap and cutting wicks for candles. He ended up running away when he was 17 then traveled to New York, Philadelphia, and to London.

His wife

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-03 05:32:32 UTC

While he was shopping he had seen and heard a girl that was laughing at him which would later become his wife and business partner. Her job was selling paper, parchment, ink, goose feathers, cheese, tea, coffee, sherry, iron stoves, spectacles, and cakes of Crown soap made by Benjamin's sister. His wife was described as short tempered and plain looking, but at the same time generous, warmhearted, and a tender nurse.

Leather-Apron Club

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-03 05:40:29 UTC

At the age of 21 Benjamin Franklin had started a club for young men with the goal of self improvement. The group would first meet in taverns and later on began to rent quarters on Pewter Platter Alley. The group held serious discussions which ended up being the reason that libraries were created.

Electrical expirements

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-03 05:54:33 UTC

According to the text on page 30, it states, "Franklin electrified the iron fence surrounding his house for the amusement of visitors." Benjamin Franklin had the idea of electrocuting a fence so that any farm animal trying to escape would be shocked by the impact. He tested his theory on turkeys to make sure it would actually work and on impact the turkeys were thrown into violent convulsions but would come back to life within fifteen minutes. He also got curious and electrocuted a turkey with 5 Leyden jars which ended up killing it and making it tender.

Playing with electricity

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 02:04:19 UTC

Benjamin and his crew wanted to test out some theories they had in mind because they wanted to understand how they could manage to control electricity and find a good source for it. They ended up deciding they were going to use a cannonball and place it in the mouth of a clean, dry, glass bottle. They took a piece of cork and suspended it nearby, it was hanging by a silk thread long enough to allow the cork to rest against the shot and so Franklin electrified and glass and had an immediate effect.

Scientific law

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 03:42:18 UTC

According to page 45, Benjamin Franklins law on electricity is summed up as the following: "Electricity is a fluid from one object to another--one object gaining an excess, the other having a shortage. When two bodies with an excess of electrical fluid meet, they repel each other. The same is true for two bodies with a negative supply of fluid. But a positively charged body attracts a neutral one of one negatively charged, because 'common matter is a kind of sponge to the electrical fluid." This shows us how Benjamin Franklin was able to come up with the idea that energy cannot simply disappear but instead is transferred.

Benjamin Franklin creates glasses?!

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 03:51:14 UTC

On page 56, it states, "Franklin was seventy-eight when he invented bifocals, a pair of glasses in which the upper half is a distance lens, and the lower half is a close up lens."The point of bifocals was to have to spend less money on 2 pairs of glasses, one for close sight, and another for long distance. He made them out of convenience for travel, looking at the scenery, and for looking through the carriage window.

His uprising

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 06:08:50 UTC

In the text on page 58, it states, "For Franklin the end of hostilities meant he was free to return to experiments. Before doing do he moved his family out of the house..." Benjamin Franklin ended up buying a farm in New Jersey and expected to live well on the welcome of the properties. He bought two slaves, man and wife, for his personal house. Franklin had never really been with the movement of owning slaves and had seen them as lazy and unreliable.This was also when Benjamin had his first taste of politics.

Taming electricity

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 06:53:36 UTC

Benjamin Franklin found out that when you have a pointed out iron rod it will attract lightning in the case of a storm. He wants to use this method of controlling lightning to be able to start a controllable fire and start a candle light. He created a pamphlet that was published in the spring of 1751 to share this information with his crew and wrote about it in his autobiography.

Franklin's famous encounter

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-04 07:06:11 UTC

On page 79, it states, "A surgeon came to examine Richmann, who was entirely lifeless; he had been killed quickly, and probably painlessly, by electrical shock from his apparatus." Just a few moths later Franklin's own encounter with electricity during a storm had taken place in the year of 1752, the date is not entirely certain, but he would go months before deciding to speak out about it.

Problems with his son

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 02:11:37 UTC

Benjamin Franklin had met a girl by the name of Polly, which he saw as the perfect grand daughter to have and was hoping that his son would marry her. His son ended up marrying Elizabeth Downes, which he didn't have a problem with but the marriage hurt him and affected his affection for William forever. William had found out he had an infant son with a mother unknown except to him and instead of him being a father for the child, he sent the boy to a foster family.

Lost election

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 03:23:45 UTC

During the year of 1764 Benjamin Franklin was trying to run for the Governor's party but ended up losing. According to the text on page 111, the reasoning for his loss is as stated, "... concentrated on Franklin's extravagance in London, his immorality in general, and the electrical discoveries they claimed were mostly stolen from others."

His family was under attack

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 03:31:30 UTC

Benjamin Franklin had created the Stamp Act which he had seen as a minor issue and didn't understand why everyone was so mad. According to the story on pages 114 and 115 it states, "In mid-September, rumors spread through town about an angry mob making ready to march on Franklin's house. " This led to them preparing for an attack but they ended up not having to worry because they had gathered hundreds of supports and police officers.

Franklin's wife starts suffering

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 03:56:02 UTC

Franklin's wife Debbie had suffered from a stroke that left her with partial Palsy in the Tongue, and had a sudden loss of memory. This was all due to dissatisfied distress because of the many years she had been waiting for her husband to return home to her. Franklin did absolutely nothing to relieve her distress because he was comfortable, happy, and busy where he was at.

Franklin getting deeper into politics

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 04:43:34 UTC

According to pages 126-127, it states " Franklin throughly disapproved of the tea dumping called it an 'act of violent injustice on our part,' and even offered to pay for the tea out of his own pocket, provided the acts against Massachusetts were repealed--a condition that made his offer impossible to accept." He is the spokesman for Massachusetts, but the Boston part of it claimed the right to govern and tax themselves denying anyone authority over them.

Receiving hate

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 05:50:55 UTC

According to the biography on page 132, "Humiliated, without influence, aware that there were men in high places working to see him imprisoned. Franklin knew that London papers were calling him 'Old Doubleface,' and 'this old snake,' and 'the living emblem of iniquity in grey hairs.' " This shows us that everyone started turning on him since every deal he wanted to make was very 1 sided and only helpful to the United States.

Becoming old

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 05:55:55 UTC

After having an oversea crossing once the boat had arrived at the destination Benjamin Franklin was unable to stand and so they needed to carry him to the inn. He was 70 years old and suffering from a mixed amount of ailments, one being gout, a painful affliction to the legs and feet.

Moving out again

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 06:08:33 UTC

Franklin and his grandsons had moved out to a small village named Passy, about a mile away from the city. They had settled into a mansion that belonged to Jacques de Chaumont, a wealthy and ambitious business man. He was involved with supplying weapons to America and had hope for commercial contracts in the later future.

Benjamin has hopes for a new wife

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 06:12:40 UTC

Franklin had started a friendship with a lady by the name of Madame Helvétius and before they knew it he was trying to press her into marrying him. He tried to make it seem like it was a humorous manner to ask her in so that if he was rejected he could have claimed to simply be joking.

His death

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 06:23:21 UTC

In the biography, "A DANGEROUS ENGINE," by Joan Dash on page 226, it states, "He died on April 17, 1790, a few months after his eighty-fourth birthday, with his grandsons Temple and Benny Bache at his bedside."

Benjamin Franklin was a founding father of the United States

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Scientific contributions

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Civic leader

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An inventor

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Writer

montaaar000_2 — 2024-04-05 06:44:52 UTC