Documentary Style
HistoricalBenjamin Franklin
Scientist, inventor, writer, diplomat, revolutionary—Franklin excelled at everything. Burns reveals how one self-taught man helped invent America while wrestling with profound contradictions.
Year
2022
Type
series
Episodes
2
Language
English
Director
Ken Burns
Genres
Summary
How did a printer's apprentice with barely two years of formal education become the most famous American of the 18th century and help create a new nation?
Ken Burns chronicles Franklin's astonishing journey across science, writing, politics, and diplomacy. He unlocked electricity's mystery with his lightning rod experiments, founded America's first public library, wrote Poor Richard's Almanack, helped craft the Declaration of Independence, secured French support for the Revolution, and shaped the Constitution. Yet his contradictions were stark—owning enslaved people, abandoning his wife, estranging his Loyalist son William.
A portrait of America's greatest polymath whose ideas about self-improvement and civic responsibility continue shaping society.