Celebrating Benjamin Franklin’s Contributions to PWDs – Technology and Satire

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17th, 1706 (if you want to be picky, it was January 6, 1705 by the “Old Style” calendar system in effect when Franklin was born).

So this Saturday is the 303rd anniversary of his birth.

It’s a good excuse to devote a little time and space to one of the most brilliant men ever born on this continent.

Franklin’s accomplishments cover way too much territory to cover in a single blog entry – and I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be the kind of thing people come here to read, anyway.

So I’ll share just a few things today that are pertinent to the lives of people with disabilities, illnesses and aging issues. After that, I’ll share his contribution to NDY concerns.

In response to a request from his seriously ill older brother, Franklin designed the first flexible urinary catheter ever used in the Colonies. As Franklin got older and experienced age-related limitations, he invented more useful devices. As his eyesight weakened, Franklin developed a need for two separate pairs of glasses – and grew tired of switching between them. This frustration led to his invention of bifocal glasses, simply cutting the tops and bottoms of his lenses from each pair and joining them together.

Franklin loved to read and had a large library. As he got older, climbing a ladder to get books on high shelves was no longer something he could do easily – or at all at times. He invented a mechanical reaching device for grabbing books off high shelves he referred to as the “long arm.”

Franklin was a talented and prolific writer. Much of what he wrote was published under pseudonyms for various reasons. In 1776, the Continental Congress sent Franklin to France as an ambassador – in an ultimately successful attempt to garner military and financial support for the war between the Colonies and England.

Franklin kept up his writing efforts while working in France. One of his most famous pieces, The Sale of the Hessians, was published in 1777. Here’s Walter Isaacson’s introduction to the piece in his book A Benjamin Franklin Reader (p.271):

Franklin also waged a propaganda campaign, and the device he often used, once again, was that of satire. Along the lines of his Edict from the King of Prussia, Franklin published anonymously what purported to be a letter to the commander of the Hessian troops in America from a German count who got paid a bounty for the death of each of the soldiers he sent over. Because Britain had decided not to pay for any wounded soldiers, only for those who died, the count encouraged his commander to make sure that as many died as possible.

Finally, at last, you might get an idea what Benjamin Franklin is doing here on the NDY blog. Below is the opening to Franklin’s “Sale of the Hessians”:

FROM THE COUNT DO SCHAUMBERGH TO THE BARON HOHENDORF,
COMMANDING THE HESSIAN TROUPS IN AMERICA

Rome, February 18, 1777
MONSIEUR LE BARON: — On my return from Naples, I received at Rome your letter of the 27th December of last year. I have learned with unspeakable pleasure the courage our troops exhibited at Trenton, and you cannot imagine my joy on being told that of the 1,950 Hessians engaged in the fight, but 345 escaped. There were just 1,605 men killed, and I cannot sufficiently commend your prudence in sending an exact list of the dead to my minister in London. This precaution was the more necessary, as the report sent to the English ministry does not give but 1,455 dead. This would make 483,450 florins instead of 643,500 which I am entitled to demand under our convention. You will comprehend the prejudice which such an error would work in my finances, and I do not doubt you will take the necessary pains to prove that Lord North’s list is false and yours correct.

The court of London objects that there were a hundred wounded who ought not to be included in the list, nor paid for as dead; but I trust you will not overlook my instructions to you on quitting Cassel, and that you will not have tried by human succor to recall the life of the unfortunates whose days could not be lengthened but by the loss of a leg or an arm. That would be making them a pernicious present, and I am sure they would rather die than live in a condition no longer fit for my service. I do not mean by this that you should assassinate them; we should be humane, my dear Baron, but you may insinuate to the surgeons with entire propriety that a crippled man is a reproach to their profession, and that there is no wiser course than to let every one of them die when he ceases to be fit to fight.

Anyone who is interested can read the rest of the letter here.

Franklin was a pragmatic man who was all too familiar with both the great potentials and equally great faults existing side by side within the human character. This piece worked because – even if no one believed the “Count” would actually write something like this – they could well believe that the letter could be an accurate reflection of his true sentiments. The idea that a person’s value or worth was limited to their ability to serve their state or ruler wasn’t exactly was probably more fact than fiction in Europe in those days.

Franklin was perhaps the only founding father with a well-developed sense of humor. A surprising amount of what he wrote is still readable, funny and relevant to our own world and changed language. Satire has been an important part of American cultural and political discourse. Any of us who use satire as an advocacy tool have a tie to Franklin and a debt of gratitude for showing us the way. –Stephen Drake