The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

• Franklin tells his life story as a self-improvement manual — the archetypal American success narrative • Boston childhood: youngest son of a candle-maker, 17 children. Apprenticed to his brother's print shop. Runs away at 17 • Philadelphia: arrives broke with two loaves of bread. Builds himself into a printer, publisher, civic leader, and scientist through sheer effort and cunning • The 13 virtues project: Franklin lists 13 moral qualities (temperance, silence, order, frugality, etc.) and tracks them in a little book. Grades himself weekly • He keeps falling short on "Order" and "Humility" — the human comedy of the self-improvement project • Public works: founding the Junto (a civic discussion club), the lending library, the fire company, the University of Pennsylvania, the hospital • The print business: Poor Richard's Almanack, the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin becomes rich and famous through practical wisdom and hard work • The autobiography is unfinished — it covers through 1757, missing the Revolution entirely • Franklin presents himself as a simple, practical man — but the performance of simplicity is itself an art • The prose is clear, witty, and deliberately unornamental — Franklin writes like he lives: efficiently • The message: America is a place where talent and industry can overcome birth. The self-made man is Franklin's invention