It’s Thanksgiving. The house smells like buttery mashed potatoes and overcooked turkey. You hate meeting your cousin Jerry, who is right about everything. It just gives you the ick. You sit at the table as you glance at Jerry putting his towel in his shirt like a bib. You eat your aromatic stuffing with turkey and creamy mac n cheese while he eats it with a fork! “Benjamin Franklin would love the turkey as the national bird,” he gawks. That makes you wonder, did Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as the national bird? Let’s pop this balloon to find out!
Who is Benjamin Franklin?
Born on January 17, 1706, Benjamin Franklin grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He had almost no formal schooling and was apprenticed at age 12 to his brother, a printer. His first real success was his own print shop in Philadelphia, where he published the Pennsylvania Gazette from 1729 and Poor Richard’s Almanack from 1732 to 1757. While working as a printer, he began experimenting with electricity in the winter of 1746–47, and his findings made him famous across Europe. He invented the Franklin stove in 1742, the glass armonica in 1761, and bifocals in the 1780s, and he never patented a single one. His main job was a printer and publisher, but he is better known as a scientist, inventor, and diplomat. He founded a library, a fire department, a hospital, and the academy that became the University of Pennsylvania. In 1776 he sailed to France as an ambassador and convinced the French to support the American Revolution. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and he died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790.
Did Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as the national bird?
This myth is half-true. Although Franklin did praise the bird, he never proposed it as a national bird. In a letter to his daughter Sarah on January 26, 1784, he called the bald eagle a bird of bad character, complaining it stole fish other birds caught rather than working and earning its own meal. He described the turkey as a more respectable bird, a true native of America. Benjamin Franklin never did anything to propose the idea that the turkey should be the national bird. The bald eagle had already been adopted on the Great Seal two years earlier, in 1782. All Franklin really did was complain about the bird.
Fun Facts
He retired from business at 42, wealthy, and spent the rest of his life on science and politics. He gave us the words “battery,” “positive,” and “negative” in electricity. He started America’s first lending library, a fire department, and a hospital.