The Society for Useful Knowledge (9 page)

Traditional Quaker emphasis—shared by the Puritans in New England—on the dignity of labor, on a job well done, enhanced the social and political standing of the craftsman in Philadelphia and throughout the province.
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And it was here that Franklin found not only talented and willing collaborators, particularly among other skilled artisans and mechanics, but also a host of public issues, social problems, and political matters that demanded attention.

This future metropolis was already suffering from considerable growing pains, exacerbated by a cumbersome political system that tended to suffocate decision making under the combined weight of the Penn family, by then its
mostly absentee proprietors, and their entrenched local rivals. Politics in the province was also plagued by the hidebound attitudes of many of its leading citizens, who were ill prepared to manage the city's rapid transformation from modest colonial settlement to major urban center.

William Penn's son Thomas assumed active control of the province shortly after the death of his father in 1718, and he and his agents soon began to squeeze the colony financially in an attempt to get out from under the family's large debts. Thomas also turned his back on his father's idealized vision of religious liberty and pluralism. He even married an Anglican and left the Quakers for the establishment Church of England—moves that only exacerbated tensions between the increasingly assertive city fathers and the proprietary family. Whereas the younger Penn and his siblings saw the colony as little more than a cash cow, the province's homegrown commercial and political leaders, as well as its rising middle class, were determined to build a vital, pluralist, and increasingly autonomous community.

The resulting stalemate meant that the provincial government was generally unable to address many of the ills common to eighteenth-century city life. The streets were unpaved, poorly lit, and frequently a mess or, in bad weather, simply impassable. Police protection and fire service were sorely lacking. Sanitation was haphazard and disease was rampant, as were mosquitoes and other pests. Education remained firmly in the hands of the city's fragmented religious groups and rival denominations, greatly complicating efforts to create anything like a unified school system, a provincial university, or other institutions able to meet the needs of America's foremost city.

Hamilton's travel diary paints a picture of a boomtown punctuated with unseemly rubbish heaps, scrap lumber, and half-built houses. He also fretted that this wealthy trading colony was incapable of defending itself from the threat posed by pirates and privateers, or by England's increasingly jealous European rivals, France and Spain. “Here is no public magazine of arms nor any method of defense, either for city or province, in case of the invasion of the enemy,” Hamilton noted with disapproval. “This is owing to the obstinacy of the Quakers in maintaining their principle of non-resistance. It were a pity but they were put to a sharp trial to see whether they would act as they profess.”
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As with other itinerant chroniclers, Alexander Hamilton, the good-time doctor, and Gottlieb Mittelberger, the organ master, recorded their passing observations of Pennsylvania life, issued their judgments, and then quit the
scene. The former returned to his country medical practice, while the latter sailed back to Germany. There would be no such withdrawal for Benjamin Franklin. Rather, his recent disavowal of “metaphysical Reasonings” now impelled him toward a new worldview, one that emphasized good works over clever words, action over theory, and collective, that is social, endeavors over the internal life of the mind.

Philadelphia appeared to offer particularly fertile soil for this newfound zeal for social action, that is, for those felicitous “Dealings between Man and Man.” Coursing throughout Franklin's thinking were the broad notions of science, and of useful knowledge in general, that he had absorbed from the “very ingenious Acquaintance” made in London, as well as from the “considerable” reading that had already established itself as a lifelong habit. Virtually all of Franklin's subsequent public life—not just his famous investigations into electricity, the Gulf Stream, and other natural phenomena, but also his political and social writings, his civic participation and philanthropy, his publishing enterprise, the homespun aphorisms of Poor Richard, the relentless networking and knowledge sharing—would reflect the underlying Enlightenment idea of “science.”

One of Franklin's favorite authors, the Englishman John Ray, once imagined God's charge to the natural philosopher as he sends him out into the world: “Go thither … and bring home what may be useful and beneficial to thy Country in general, or thyself in particular.”
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Ray, whose work Franklin later recommended as indispensible for the education of colonial youth, went on to align the work of the natural philosopher not just with observation, collection, and experimentation, but also with social action in the form of meetings, the sharing of information, and mutual assistance.
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Franklin found in the work of John Ray a master blueprint for approaching the challenges facing both his adopted city and his fellow tradesmen, an approach dominated by the free and open exchange of ideas and findings, as well as a general preference for practical solutions over theoretical principles. He routinely declined to seek patents or otherwise profit directly from his various innovations, such as the Franklin stove.

On occasion, he took this enthusiasm for practical knowledge and experience to such an extreme as to privilege it over any search for underlying causes or physical laws: “ 'Tis of real Use to know, that China left in the Air
unsupported will fall and break; but how it comes to fall, and why it breaks, are Matters of Speculation. 'Tis a Pleasure indeed to know them, but we can preserve our China without it.”
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By the autumn of 1727, Franklin was ready to launch his first significant social venture, the Leather Apron Club. This society grew out of an earlier grassroots organization, the Tiff Club, created by William Keith, the recently ousted governor of Pennsylvania and the unreliable patron of Franklin's first London adventure. Tiff Club members were known as leather aprons, a reference to their social base among the artisans, craftsmen, and petty merchants.
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Keith's populist tendencies and general rabble-rousing alarmed the well-to-do Quaker grandees, prompting one of their number to dismiss these unwanted intruders in the political arena as “new, vile people … they may be truly called a mob.”
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Franklin's own group, soon known simply as the Junto, combined the conviviality of a private drinking club with the advantages of a mutual-aid society, the moral and intellectual self-improvement of a discussion circle, and the altruism of a civic association. Membership was restricted to twelve and proceedings were conducted in secret, all the better to advance participants' projects, facilitate planning, and pursue career advancement; it also protected the Junto, argued Franklin, from awkward solicitations for membership from friends and associates.

From the outset, the club revolved around the printer Franklin and other proud wearers of the leather apron. These included the glazier Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician and inventor of an improved quadrant for navigation; the surveyor Nicholas Scull; the shoemaker, geographer, and sometime astrologer William Parsons; and William Maugridge, “a most exquisite Mechanic, and a solid, sensible Man.”
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Also taking part were the prosperous silversmith Philip Syng; a merchant's clerk; several journeymen printers from Franklin's professional cohort; and the odd gentleman of fortune. Most would remain in Franklin's inner circle for the rest of their lives.

Gatherings of the Junto were held initially at the Indian King Tavern on Market Street, one of the oldest of the drinking establishments that were
integral to Philadelphia civic life, not unlike the London coffeehouses of Franklin's youth. Here, out-of-town visitors could find lodgings and locals could hold meetings, attend concerts, or sample the latest news and gossip. The Masonic lodge, another Franklin project, later held some of its earliest meetings at the Indian King, and the final order to evacuate American forces and leave the town to the advancing British in September of 1777 was issued from the bar.

The Junto met each week to discuss the personal and professional advancement of its members, as well as the prevailing idiom of science, or natural philosophy, and the language of social improvement. “The Rules that I drew up required that every Member, in his Turn, should produce one or more Queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discussed by the Company,” recalled Franklin.
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In addition, each participant was expected to deliver an original paper once every three months.

Junto members also took a series of oaths: to affirm their unequivocal respect for their colleagues; to declare their sincere love for humankind, “of what profession or religion so ever”; to act doggedly and impartially in the search for truth; and to disavow the notion that anyone be harmed “in his body, name or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship.” Each of these solemn pledges, Franklin suggested, should be preceded by a “Pause … while one might fill and drink a Glass of Wine.” Once a month, except in wintertime, the Junto gathered outdoors on a Sunday afternoon for calisthenics, the physical embodiment of Franklin's lifelong concern with fitness and health. They even had their own club song, to be “hummed in Consort, by as many as can hum it.”
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To help guide the meetings, Franklin drafted twenty-four questions to be reviewed by all in the morning as preparation for that night's session. “Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? Particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic [medicine], travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?” reads one. “Do you think of anything at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to
mankind
? To their country, to their friends, or to themselves?” asks another. Additional queries focused more narrowly on personal advancement, soliciting accounts of extraordinary business acumen that might be emulated, or cautionary tales of moral failings and commercial missteps to be avoided at all costs.
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Among the most pressing problems facing the province of Pennsylvania at the time was a persistent shortage of currency, mostly in the form of gold, silver, and copper coins. This benefited the rentier class that generally presided over local affairs but acted as a serious barrier to the advancement of men such as Franklin and his fellow tradesmen, all of whom were forced to borrow to finance their businesses. The city's workers, frequently in debt and at times hard-pressed even to collect those cash wages due them, also suffered from the lack of ready currency, and the province's general economic activity lagged as a result. Not surprisingly, the Leather Apron Club took up agitation for the introduction of paper notes and discussed the topic in depth at their private meetings.

Franklin had only recently opened his own workshop, advertised to the public as “the New Printing-Office, near the Market,” with financial support from his buddies in the Junto. One of the Quaker members further advanced this risky enterprise—Philadelphia already had two established printers and many in town expected the new venture to fail—by securing a lucrative printing job from the Society of Friends, at the expense of one of Franklin's business rivals. After the recent disappointments in London, particularly the failure of Governor Keith to provide promised financing, Franklin had at last realized his dream of going into trade for himself.

He wasted no time in seeking to establish his reputation as a competent printer and reliable business partner, not only working long hours into the night but also making sure he was seen to do so. Ever eager to promote himself in the eyes of the Philadelphia elite, Franklin would on occasion purchase paper stock from city shops and then parade it through the streets in a wheelbarrow, publicly underscoring his commitment to physical labor as well as his ability to pay for the supplies he needed.

Benjamin Rush, the prominent physician, revolutionary, and Franklin protégé, lampooned the prevailing class notions that separated the gentleman from other more honest walks of life: “If a merchant be a gentleman he would sooner lose fifty customers than be seen to carry a piece of goods across the street.”
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But Franklin's tactics began to pay off, and the Philadelphia business leaders who wined and dined at the Every-night Club began to take notice of the young man still in his workshop as they returned to their homes late in the evening.

Franklin now controlled an important public outlet for his ideas and those of the Junto. The immediate result was the anonymous pamphlet,
A Modest
Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency
, one of the earliest publications from this new press. Here, Franklin and the Leather Aprons give powerful voice to the interests and aspirations of the city's artisans and workers on one of the most important questions of the day. They were also carrying on in the spirit of William Keith, the former governor, and the members of his Tiff Club, who had lobbied for paper money.
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A Modest Enquiry
is a work of considerable economic sophistication in which Franklin formulates—to the delight 130 years later of no less a political economist than Karl Marx—a coherent labor theory of value: “Trade in general being nothing else but the Exchange of Labor for Labor, the Value of all Things is … most justly measured by Labor.”
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Franklin then asserted that it is the workmen and artisans—the leather aprons—who represent “
the chief Strength and Support of a People
” and that the present circumstances penalize them unfairly and will force them to leave the province, at great cost to society as a whole.