Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin walked up Philadelphia’s Market Street with a loaf under each arm and a third in his hand, munching as he went. At a doorway, a young woman saw him—and thought he looked ridiculous.

In early eighteenth-century Boston, Franklin’s father tried to steer him toward the pulpit, then the family trade of candles and soap. The restless boy wanted books; apprenticed to his printer brother at thirteen, he soon found himself at odds with both his master and the town’s authorities. At seventeen, with little money and no secure prospect, he slipped away by sloop to New York, then pushed on to Philadelphia. John T. Morse Jr.’s account follows a young man with a talent for print, argument, and finding his way into unfamiliar rooms. How far can that talent carry a runaway apprentice in a city where he knows no one?

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