Interest in America’s revolutionary era ebbs and flows ... mean when you say in the title in your book that Benjamin Franklin was the first American? The First American? MR. BRAND: I use ...

Before he helped launch a revolution, Benjamin Franklin was colonial ... who had emigrated from Ecton, England, Franklin became an American printer of national significance: the editor and ...

Benjamin Franklin was present for many important moments throughout the American Revolution. Not only did he sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but he also signed the Treaty of Alliance ...

In a letter to his friend Benjamin Rush he predicted that future generations would believe that "The essence of the [American Revolution was] that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the earth and ...

Keywords American identity, Revolutionary War, literature, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Common Sense, Declaration of Independence, political writings, colonial printing, emerging ...

It presents some difficulties, however, when applied to Benjamin Franklin, a man whose character remains mysterious and whose voluminous writings are full of ...