Quote · The Rest Is History
684. Franklin: Revenge of the American Genius (Part 2)
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Franklin's Origins: Puritan Boston and a Tallow Chandler's Son
At 15:40 · chapter starts 12:36
Tom Holland traces Franklin's origins to a household steeped in Puritan conviction and the smell of rendered animal fat. His father Josiah had emigrated from England to Boston in 1683, partly for commercial opportunity and partly for religious freedom after Charles II's restoration made England inhospitable to Nonconformists. Franklin's mother Abiah was descended from Puritans who had made the crossing in the 1630s, before the English Civil War — meaning the Franklin household carried living memory of the earliest Puritan America. Young Benjamin was one of 11 siblings, the youngest boy, growing up in a tiny, cramped, tallow-smelling house on Milk Street in Boston — an environment that was dirty and dangerous (an elder brother had drowned in a tub of suds at 16 months) but that instilled values of industry, hard work, and self-improvement that would become Franklin's defining inheritance.
Franklin's father Josiah emigrated to Boston in 1683, becoming a tallow chandler — rendering animal fat into candles and soap — to support his family and practise his Puritan faith freely.
Benjamin Franklin was one of 11 siblings and the youngest boy, growing up in a cramped, tallow-smelling house on Milk Street, Boston — a distinctly industrial but work-ethic-driven environment.
