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Benjamin Franklin
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What is Benjamin Franklin?

Benjamin Franklin stands as one of the most examined figures in American history and literature, making him a frequent subject in courses ranging from early American history and political science to rhetoric and literature. His roles as a statesman, inventor, writer, and founding father give him unusual breadth as a subject: students can approach him as a political thinker who shaped American independence, as a self-made figure whose autobiography defined a national ideal, or as a scientist whose inventions reshaped everyday life. Gordon S. Wood's The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin appears among the sources students draw on, reflecting how scholarly interpretation of Franklin continues to evolve and generate debate.

Papers on this topic take several distinct approaches. Some focus on Franklin's inventions and their lasting impact on society, while others treat his life in Philadelphia and his complicated relationship with England as windows into colonial American history. Comparative essays place Franklin alongside contemporaries such as Thomas Paine or Jonathan Edwards to examine contrasting visions of America. A smaller cluster of papers analyzes Franklin's use of humor and his identity as an author, treating his writings as literary texts rather than purely historical documents.

A strong essay on Benjamin Franklin requires a focused thesis rather than a broad biographical survey. The most persuasive papers choose a specific dimension — his political philosophy, his rhetorical strategies, a particular invention's social effects — and support claims with close reading of primary sources or well-chosen historical evidence. The most common pitfall is treating Franklin as a symbol rather than a complex historical person, which flattens analysis and weakens the argument.

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Hamilton and Jefferson's conflict over central government power and federalism

The Second Continental Congress is virtually the most important congress in the history of the United States of America, representing the very formation of the country. The Congress had initially met to deal with the American Revolutionary War, but ended up adopting the Declaration of Independence and forming the government of the United States.

Research Paper Undergraduate

The theme of "a new start" in American literature

The history of the American literature can be considered to be in deep contact with the history of the American nation itself. It represents a close mirror image of the way in which the United States came into being.

Essay Doctorate

The balance between free speech and national security after 9/11

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Research Paper Undergraduate

Class conflict and religious revival in the Great Awakening

¶ … Great Awakening. Those who practiced the established religions tended to be of a different class and outlook of those who heeded the call of the Great Awakening preachers. The established plutocrats found the new…

Paper Doctorate

Howard Zinn's critique of American ideology and foreign policy

Howard Zinn (1991), author of Declarations of independence: cross-examining American ideology, begins his book by saying that when the idea that black people were "less than human" entered Western consciousness several…

Paper Undergraduate

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit: history, eligible groups, and employer incentives

Work Opportunity Tax Credit WOTC), one form of activation, Eichhors, Kaufmann, and Konle-Seidl (2009) explain, was enacted in 1997 to replace the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit. Employers who hire individuals in the eligible…

Paper Undergraduate

City diplomacy and the role of cities in international politics

Over the past several decades, there has been a tendency for cities to be involved internationally and this is stated to demonstrate that demonstrates that the maintenance of international relations is no longer…

Paper Doctorate

The United States Constitution's role in American national development

Without the ratification of the U.S. Constitution the Articles of Confederation would have been the predominant legal structure of the new Republic of the United States. Therefore, there would be no strong central…

Research Paper Undergraduate

Joseph Ellis's "His Excellency": Finding the man behind the myth

Writing a biography about a figure as revered as George Washington, the first President of the United States, can be a daunting task, given the fact that he has acquired mythical status in our society.

Essay Doctorate

Anomie and alienation in classical sociology and Marx

Running through the literature of classical late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century sociology are themes of isolation, of the poverty of life lived in isolated cells, of the fragility of a life in which we can almost never make authentic connections with other people, in which we are lost even to ourselves. We have – and this "we" includes the entire population of the industrialized world, or at least most of it – have raised the act of rationalism to an art form, but along the way we have lost so much of our humanity that we can no longer form or maintain a community. Four of the major social critics of the twentieth century took up these themes for essentially the same reason: To argue that while ailing human society could be transformed in ways that would give it meaning once again. They differ significantly, however, in what the nature of that transformation should and what meaning humans should be intent on seeking.

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