Why Is Benjamin Franklin Important

Benjamin Franklin was an intelligent and creative inventor. He is famous for his inventions and genius, but was also highly respected in his own day by the most distinguished people of the time. Franklin’s ideas spanned from the arts to science to economics to politics. The question is which of his inventions is most important. Seymour Stanton Block divulges his answer to this question in “Benjamin Franklin America’s Inventor.” Franklin’s reputation sparked from his work with lightening. His original idea for the lightening rod came from experimenting with electricity for years. The lightening rod protects houses and other property from the harm lightening can inflict and is still utilized today, hardly changed from Franklin’s
Out of this passion came his invention of the Armonica. Inspired by a performance he saw in London, he created an instrument that made beautiful, sweet music. He took 37 glass bowls of different sizes each with a hole in the middle and mounted them on an iron spindle close together. The spindle, lying horizontally, was rotated by a foot treadle. A musician could easily rub his wet fingers around the rims of the revolving bowls to produce a pleasing sound. Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for this instrument which further reveals Franklin’s
Later in 1754, he planned a union, the Albany Plan of Union, which was a federal system including two branches, executive and the Grand Council, where the colonies would be represented by elected legislators. Franklin strongly support representation of the people, which is clear in his rebuttal when William Shirley suggested eliminating representatives of the colonies in Grand Council. Even though the colonies and the British government rejected his Plan of Union, Franklin never gave up on his