Rarely remembered as a magazinist, Benjamin Franklin throughout his life paid tribute to the print shop, which served first as his school-room and later as a pulpit for his ideas on government and the media. Although Franklin's direct contributions to the evolution of the magazine industry in America are not extensive, he exercised a stimulating influence upon the development of the field. In fact, it was Franklin's idea that generated the first American magazines in Philadelphia in February 1741. By 1749 he had moved on to the other interests--science, government, politics, and international affairs--for which he is better known today.

A remarkably versatile man, described by D.H. Lawrence as the first "down-right" American, Franklin was born to Josiah Franklin and his second wife, Abiah Folger, in Boston on 17 January 1706. A voracious reader, at the age of eight Franklin was put into grammar school but removed to a less expensive...