American historian Jesse Lemisch reads several selections from American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. Franklin began his autobiography—what he referred to as his “memoirs”—in 1771. His last entries were written shortly before his death in 1790. Among the highlighted portions read by Lemisch are Franklin discussing his love for reading, his relocation from Boston to Philadelphia, and an original list of “moral virtues.”
Track Listing:
Introduction
Childhood
Discovering Books
Leaving Boston
Philadelphia
The Junto
Founding a Library
Moral Virtues
Benjamin Franklin was an important conservative figure in the American Restoration Movement, especially as the leading antebellum conservative in the northern United States branch of the movement. He is notable as the early and lifelong mentor of Daniel Sommer, whose support of the 1889 Sand Creek Declaration set in motion events which led to the formal division of the Churches of Christ from the Disciples of Christ in 1906.
According to contemporary biographies "His early religious training was according to the Methodist faith, though he never belonged to any church until he united with the Disciples."
In 1856, Franklin began to publish the ultra-conservative American Christian Review, which he published until his death in 1878. Its influence, initially considerable, was said to have waned following the American Civil War. Franklin undertook a rigorous program of publication correspondence, and traveling lectures which took him to "many" U. S. states and Canada.
Franklin's last move was to Anderson, Indiana, where he lived from 1864 until his death.
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