Intellectual property, the ownership of ideas, was not what mattered. The point was not where the ideas had come from but the uses to which they could be put. Franklin, []. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The first Poor Richard was so successful that Franklin printed three impressions from December to January This is the only known copy of the third.
Richard Saunder [sic]. Wilde, for the Company of Stationers, Some of his most outspoken 19th century critics included Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and Melville, all charging Franklin with shaping an America built on a foundation of strict morality and the acquisition of wealth at the expense of individual expression. Mondloch cites D. Lawrence as one of Franklin's harshest critics, Lawrence claiming that "'it has taken me many years and countless smarts to get out of that barbed wire moral enclosure that Poor Richard rigged up.
He believed he had a duty to uplift the individual for the good of the community. He freely admitted in his autobiography that his goal was to influence his readership with these sayings, recollecting " Franklin's maxims reflect his determination to educate his neighbors to follow his model. However, Franklin did not forget the witty verses that made the almanac initially successful. In , he explained his motive for mixing comedy and morality in equal proportions.
In all the Dishes I have hitherto cook'd for thee, there is solid meat enough for thy Money. There are Scraps from the Table of Wisdom, that will if well digested, yield strong Nourishment to thy Mind.
But squeamish Stomachs cannot eat without pickles; which 'tis true, are good for nothing else, but they provoke an appetite. The Vain Youth that reads my Almanack for the Sake of an idle Joke, will perhaps meet with a serious Reflection, that he may ever after be the better for. Franklin's genius was to interweave the frivolous with the sublime, creating a mix that enticed his audience to want more. In , Franklin changed the name of the almanac to Poor Richard Improved , increasing the physical size, the amount of content and the price.
The intellectual content and prescriptions for success also increased. In these later editions, Franklin fervently promoted his ideals of industry, morality and thrift.
During this period of his life, Franklin was more involved in social and political activities. Mondloch cites Palmeri, noting "He credits Poor Richard Improved and the politically charged almanacs that succeeded it with shaping the 'idea of an American nation and the ideal hard-working citizen of that nation. Franklin is credited by some as providing the impetus for a generation who forged a new nation founded in part on the ideals that Poor Richard advanced.
Poor Richard's Almanack became Franklin's second most profitable work, the Pennsylvania Gazette being the first. Nor was the popularity of Franklin's almanac confined to Philadelphia. By the s, Franklin marketed the almanac to other colonies from Boston to Charleston, selling ten thousand copies annually and providing Franklin with roughly one third of his income. In fact, Franklin's printing business was so profitable as to afford him the luxury of retiring from the daily operations at age In , Franklin's civic obligations carried him to England, but not before he laid the almanac to rest.
He concluded his quarter-century run of Poor Richard with a speech delivered at an auction by another fictitious character, "a plain clean old Man, with white Locks," Father Abraham.
Franklin compiled many of the maxims from previous editions, recalling in his autobiography that "The bringing all these scatter'd Counsels thus into a Focus, enabled them to make greater Impression. Franklin wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders. Richard Saunders was an English physician and astrologist who wrote under the pen name of Cardanus Rider which in rearranged letters is Richard Saunders.
The name Poor Richard was adapted from another British almanac, Poor Robin which was first published in The almanac was a best seller in the American colonies printing up to 10, copies a year. Its success brought wealth to Benjamin Franklin. In his first edition Franklin predicted the death of Titan Leeds, a competitor publisher of another calendar.
Moreover, the use of these texts was also linked to the introjection process of moral and ethical values. In Brazil many are the texts with this last characteristic, and one of them which was spread all over the empire was the work The science of the poor man Richard created as of the Poor Richard's Almanacks annually published by Benjamin Franklin, aged 26, from to The author used the pseudonym of Richard Saunders. This work had a remarkable reception in the occidental world, being translated to several languages and with a huge use in the classrooms as equipment for the process of obtaining the ability of reading.
There is no doubt that this text contributed decisively for the instauration and, more precisely, for the consolidation of a capitalist mentality in line with the structural alterations arising from the Mercantile Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, particularly in Europe and in the United States.
This work, within its own proportional scales, would mean to the capitalism the same as the communist manifest created by Marx and Engels would mean to the communism in the sense of representing a doctrinaire attack, reduced to a brochure that would summarize behaviors and attitudes consistent with the adequate practices of the respective social systems.
The Science of the poor man Richard fraught with the precepts that highlighted saving, asceticism, work, humility, obedience among others fit perfectly in the new society that needed a legitimate doctrinaire instrument for a practice, in a way, grounded on social inequality and that needed mechanisms of ideological introjection able to explain the reasons of social inequalities and, moreover, needed to naturalize this social stratification as of personal characteristics.
The proverbs, which constitute one of the most important elements in the Almanack are not all of Franklin's authorship, but many collected by him, represent a window display of a whole world conception marked by the emergence of liberal ideals convenient for the consolidation of the occidental capitalism.
It is important to point out that the Almanack was not composed entirely of these sayings, but au contraire, they were diluted in a series of information, as was common in this kind of publishing. It contained astrological information, train timetables, humor, entertainment, eclipse dates among others which assembled a product with a strong popular appeal. Pragmatically, the Science of the poor man Richard removed these last aspects from the writings, constituting a text simply of formatting.
Under this aspect, it sought to act both in a continuing education, and in the initial formation of the children, in so far it was vastly used in the classrooms in the schools of initial years. In the format that circled the world, the Science of the poor man Richard , is constituted of the introduction of the last almanac created by Benjamin Franklin in , for the edition, and sometimes published under the title The way to wealth or Father Abraham's speech.
In Portuguese, in general it was published with the title Science of the poor man Richard with the sub-title The way to wealth as can be noticed in the edition by Nicolau Alves.
Image 1. The science of the poor man Richard, cover of the edition. In a way, the sayings in Almanak reflect a case study, which is the author himself who through his own hard work, grew from poverty to richness.
Benjamin Franklin, printer, philosopher, physicist and American statesman was born in Boston in and died in Philadelphia in Being the son of a humble candle's producer he started his professional life at the age of 10 as his father's apprentice and later started working as a printer in his brother James' typography. In , he visited New York and Philadelphia and later England, where he refined in this activity. Subsequently returning to America he founded a company from which he created a newspaper and founded The poor Richard's Almanack.
He strengthened his position as a statesman since the beginning of the rebellions of the colonies in North America when he was designated by the settlers, in , to take their complains to London. Furthermore, it was him who, along with Jefferson and John Adams, drafted the manifest of the declaration of independence in The effect that the publication of The poor Richard's Almanack provoked in the life of Franklin draws attention.
In his autobiography, he attests that this publication meant the turning point, which removed his family from a life of poverty to one with abundance. An introduction. Poor Richard. The Almanack for the years George Macy Companies, Immediately the periodic drew crowds within the population, particularly the ones with lower spending power, in a way that with so many printings, for that time, its author could have an extraordinary profit.
With the economic success, there was also a social recognition, which provided him the rise to relevant social positions in the North American colonial structure, making Benjamin Franklin the representative of the settlers' aspirations in relation with the problems with England.
The almanac had the ability of reaching, indistinctively literate and illiterate, as in one way or another its sayings ended up being assimilated by the entire society. One aspect that must be highlighted is the creativity of Benjamin Franklin in associating the text with illustrations that made the message assimilation much more effective.
As can be observed in the examples reproduced below and published respectively in the almanacs of the years and and which emphasized the issue of waste of time. Image 2. Representation published in the Almanac of Image 3. It is clear then, that the periodic is a libel to the citizen that works hard, that resists idleness, that pays religiously his taxes, that saves, that is constant in his search for the proposed goals, particularly the ones linked to assuring the material success.
All this behavior is consistent with the new world conception in consolidation in the occidental world, at the time, the capitalist. The new man that was trying to be built, both the proletarian and the bourgeois, should present himself with these constitutive elements, in a way that, the compilation of these procedures in a text destined for publicity, could contribute for the introjection of the desired citizen profile.
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