Journal article
Introduction
Early American studies, v 8(1), pp 1-4
01 Dec 2010
Abstract
The three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin was celebrated in 2006 by a major exhibition, Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World, which originated in Philadelphia and traveled around the country, ending in Paris in 2008, and by a host of other exhibitions, publications, and programs in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The papers in this volume grew out of one of those programs, a scholarly conference, ‘‘The Atlantic World of Print in the Age of Franklin,’’ which was sponsored by the Library Company of Philadelphia, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and the Penn Humanities Forum. This conference theme was chosen in part because Franklin was such a central figure in the Atlantic world of print throughout his life, which spans most of the eighteenth century. While still a journeyman, he moved from Boston to Philadelphia to London, a degree of mobility that no previous American printer could claim. His newspaper had perhaps the largest circulation in the colonies, and this in addition to his network of printing partners and his position as postmaster put him at the center of an unrivalled intercolonial communications network. He and his partner, David Hall, were also the largest importers of British books in North America. Later, as representative of the United States to the French, he did as much as anyone to establish a postcolonial identity for the new nation and to carve out a place for it in a reconfigured Atlantic community; this too he did in part as a printer, in the persona he presented to the French and in the actual documents he printed on his press at Passy. And finally, back in Philadelphia, he helped draft the Constitution that made the United States the first nation founded on a printed document. Many of the essays in this volume are only tangentially about Franklin, but he is the exemplary figure that links them all together. [1st paragraph]
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Details
- Title
- Introduction
- Creators
- James N. Green - Brown UniversityRosalind Remer - Historical Society of Pennsylvania
- Publication Details
- Early American studies, v 8(1), pp 1-4
- Publisher
- Univ Pennsylvania Press
- Number of pages
- 4
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- History; Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000421835000001
- Other Identifier
- 991022016320404721
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