As the ultimate self-made man, Benjamin Franklin is often cited as the most contemporary of the Founding Fathers, as a salt-of-the-earth entrepreneur, but also as a ladies’ man, the paragon of frugality and the first to draw electricity from the sky with a kite. These popular takes are incomplete or dead wrong.
Our speaker, Joseph Rosenbloom has been researching Franklin’s legacy for over two years and believes Franklin to be our nation’s most enduring icon. “What we ought to tease from his legacy are his commitment as a sort of Renaissance man to devote himself to the wellbeing of others and his wisdom and pragmatism as a politician and diplomat. He achieved monumental success and we should heed his example, particularly in these fraught times.”