Franklin and Douglass: Parallel American Autobiographies

Introduction: Two Lives Across the Racial Divide

Although Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass began their lives on opposite sides of the black-white divide in America, their personal narratives contain many parallel features. Both suffered a kind of bondage — indentured servitude to his brother in the case of Franklin, and actual slavery in the South in the case of Douglass — and both later rose to prominent heights as authors and self-made men. Taken together, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass offer a revealing lens through which to examine the possibilities and limitations of the American promise of self-determination.

Shared Values: Work, Literacy, and the Pursuit of Freedom

Both men held work in high esteem. Franklin saw his thrift and industry as the primary reasons for his success. Douglass criticized slavery because it eroded the ability to work hard and to profit from one's own labor. Both men are shown chafing at the restrictions placed upon them while they were young.

Douglass longed to learn how to read, and while literacy was not denied to Franklin, the young Franklin had to conceal his authorship of the editorials he published in his brother's newspaper. Similarly, Douglass had to conceal his urge to learn to read as a slave. As a young boy, he was fortunate enough to be taught the alphabet, and he held onto that knowledge even under very trying conditions, determined to escape the confines of slavery.

Both men, in different ways, illustrate a common yearning for freedom. The narrative of Douglass in particular dramatizes how the suppression of literacy was used as a tool of control, making the acquisition of reading and writing a profoundly political act.

Self-Made Men: Leaving Home to Forge a New Identity

To establish themselves professionally, both men had to leave their places of origin. Even within America, they functioned as immigrants of a sort. Franklin fled from his brother to Philadelphia, where he opened his own print shop. His industry and sobriety stood in stark contrast to his first associate, who was given to drinking. Douglass, of course, had to leave the enslaved South and head North. In this sense, both men function as self-made or enterprising individuals, deliberately wresting themselves free from challenging personal circumstances to pursue a new life. The ideal of the self-made man is central to both narratives, even as each author's path toward that ideal was shaped by vastly different social conditions.

Conclusion: American Ideals and the Limits of the American Dream

Franklin's Autobiography celebrates the value of American concepts such as enterprise and freedom — freedom from indentured servitude, but also from the British Crown. One of the reasons the colonists wished to free themselves from British rule was that they viewed England as inhibiting commerce and financially exploiting them. American optimism is also demonstrated in Franklin's attempt to design a program by which he might perfect himself morally and professionally.

Douglass, too, tried to better himself, but unlike Franklin, his obstacles were mainly external rather than internal. Douglass clearly wished to show himself as a man eager to participate in the American experience of freedom who was continually thwarted from doing so. His work was primarily intended to illustrate to white readers the full humanity of Black slaves and the unnaturalness of their condition, by contrasting his innate desire for freedom with the evils produced by the institution of slavery. Together, the two autobiographies reveal how the same national ideals of liberty and self-determination could simultaneously inspire one man and be weaponized to deny them to another.