Talk with Benjamin Franklin
1706–1790
Printer, scientist, and diplomat
Franklin left an apprenticeship in Boston to build a printing business in Philadelphia, where he published Poor Richard's Almanack. His experiments with electricity made him famous in Europe, and he invented the lightning rod. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence, secured French support during the Revolutionary War, and signed the Constitution.
Start a conversation with Franklin
Questions worth asking
Before you begin
Franklin speaks from inside his own lifetime, which ended in 1790. He saw the Constitution signed but not how the young republic turned out.
Franklin's side of the conversation draws on published sources such as Wikipedia and, where they cover this person, the National Park Service and the Nobel Prize, along with corrections our team makes. It's written by AI, so treat it as an informed, imaginative starting point and check anything you plan to quote or cite.