Volume 2: Printer And Publisher 1730-1747: - List of illustrations - Preface - Part 1: New Life, Age 24 to 30 (1730-1736): - Personal and business life - Art of virtue - Freemason - Library company of Philadelphia - Man of letters - Politics, religion, and the rivalry with Bradford, 1732 - Poor Richard's prefaces, 1733-1747 - Poor Richard's proverbs - Franklin and politics, 1730-1736 - Hemphill controversy - Assessing Franklin as a young man, age 24 to 30 - Part 2: Expanding Personal Interest, Age 30 Through 41 (1736-1747): - Personal life - Assembly clerk and Pennsylvania politics - Firefighter - Earning a living: printer, publisher, merchant, bookseller, and postmaster - Concerned citizen - George Whitefield and the great awakening - Natural philosophy - Satires and other writing, 1736-1747 - Assessing Franklin, age 30 through 41 - Appendices: - New attributions - Franklin's organizations: date and locations of meetings 1727-1747 - Sample wages and prices in Colonial Philadelphia - Sources, documentation, dates - Abbreviated references - Notes - Index - Acknowledgments Volume 1: Journalist 1706-1730 - List of illustrations - Preface - Part 1: Boston: Youth, 1706-1723: - Prologue: Quandary - Boston - Child to adolescent - Printer's devil - Massachusetts controversies, 1716-1723 - Nathaniel Gardner and the couranteers - James Franklin: America's first newspaperman - Silence dogood in context - Saucy and provoking: Franklin takes charge - Assessing Franklin as a youth, to age seventeen - Part 2: Adrift: Age Seventeen To Twenty-four, 1723-1730 - Runaway - Water American: London escapades - At sea, 1726 - Merchant to master printer, 1726-1728 - Junto - Business, 1728-1730, and "Articles of Religion" - Busy-body - Paper currency - Journalist - Assessing Franklin, age seventeen to twenty-four - Appendix: New attributions - Sources and documentation - List of abbreviations - Notes - Index - Acknowledgments Includes bibliographical references and indexes Journalist, musician, politician, scientist, humorist, inventor, civic leader, printer, writer, publisher, businessman, founding father, philosopher - a genius in all fields and a bit of a magician in some
Born into a humble tradesman's family, this adaptable genius rose to become an architect of the world's first democracy, a leading light in Enlightenment science, and a major creator of what has come to be known as the American character. Overview: Described as "a harmonious human multitude," Ben Franklin's life and careers were so varied and successful that he remains, even today, the epitome of the self-made man.