No Poor Richard

[reddie]

Ben Franklin nearly went to jail in 1738 for being involved in the accidental death of a youth during a quasi-hazing ritual. What if jail had shattered his health, and he died in 1742? What would be the consequences for the nascent USA?

[Othniel]

I thought this was going to be a double blind were Richy Rich was a pauper instead of a prince...

But then I got the literary reference, and discovered this was in the wrong forum for that anyways...


Well Poor Richard's almanac would still be out there with this POD, it was first published in 1733. Though the American Philosophical Society wouldn't be founded in 1743, and the concepts of fire departments and libraries might not be as well founded...and it might really hurt Britian during the Seven Year's War, because Franklin pushed for unity between the colonies. Oh and the Articles of Confederation were based partially around ideas presented at the Albany Congress which Ben Franklin proposed.

[Smaug]

Can't dodge the "Enlightenment". Americans were consumed with the ideas of the Enlightenment, even moreso than the French, who gave the majority of the Ideas to the Colonials.

[david3565]

Originally Posted by Smaug

Can't dodge the "Enlightenment". Americans were consumed with the ideas of the Enlightenment, even moreso than the French, who gave the majority of the Ideas to the Colonials.

Yes and no. The kernel of American political thought came from Early Modern and Early Enlightenment thought, drawing heavily on Anglo political and legal traditions, rooted in the Westminster flavor of Reformed Christianity. American Revolutionaries skirted or rejected several key ideas of contemporary European radical Enlightenment thought. The French, on the other hand, embraced that same contemporary thought more than Americans ever did.

[david3565]

Oh, and with no Poor Richard, you loose sayings like, "A penny saved is a penny earned," "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," etc.

[Othniel]

Originally Posted by david3565

Oh, and with no Poor Richard, you loose sayings like, "A penny saved is a penny earned," "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," etc.

But with his chosen POD Poor Richard's Almanac is still around.

[Othniel]

Originally Posted by Smaug

Can't dodge the "Enlightenment". Americans were consumed with the ideas of the Enlightenment, even moreso than the French, who gave the majority of the Ideas to the Colonials.

Whats more important in this case, the interpratation of indivudal on Elightenment ideals or the Elightenment's infunece over those indivudals? I would say in the case of the american Revolution it is the former not the later. In this case I would need to see spefic people filling in for different places in the case of Ben here. The truth is the man did alot, and without him there those tasks he completed, started, or was in charge of would be done differently or maybe not at all.

[DuQuense]

Like Greenly and his 'Remember the Maine"
Press Mogul Franklin publishing the Details of the "Boston Massacre" along with Reveve's propaganda Woodcut, basically solidifidies the vauge disconcent among the Americans.

Without Franklin's newspaper empire firmly on the rebels side, the Rebellion may never have Gelled into a unified cause.