BENFRANKLIN.COM:
Author & Illustrator Tim Ogline explains why Ben Franklin would be a technology evangelist today

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”  — Ben Franklin

Illustration by Tim Ogline

From the rebellious instincts of a runaway apprentice to the discipline and drive of a self-made printer, best-selling author, diplomat and scientist, there’s doesn’t seem much Ben Franklin (1706-1790) couldn’t do.

Franklin’s innovations saved lives through fire prevention (lightning rods), improved vision (bifocals), illuminated crowded streets (street lights), spread knowledge (the first full-service library), and even helped library patrons reach coveted volumes on the top shelf (extension arms). As a boy, Franklin invented swim fins; and today, holds a place in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

A pragmatist and a restless dreamer, Franklin braved eight transatlantic journeys and spent 27 years of his life abroad and never ceased to exhibit an ability to adapt.

“He worked with whatever tools were around him,” says Tim E. Ogline, author and illustrator of Ben Franklin for Beginners (For Beginners, an imprint of Steerforth Press, October, 2013).  “Were he alive, today, Ben Franklin would certainly champion connective technologies and next-gen media.”

The seed for Ben Franklin for Beginners was planted when Ogline met Dawn Reshen-Doty, the publisher of For Beginners (http://www.forbeginnersbooks.com), at a trade show. “We had a conversation about their line, and I mentioned that they should consider including more American History titles… and my enthusiasm for Benjamin Franklin became quite apparent. After the show I produced a sample chapter with text and illustrations, and a few months later we had a signed contract to produce Ben Franklin For Beginners.”

In his informative and entertaining Graphic biography of Franklin’s achievements,Ogline reminds readers that though Franklin enjoyed great success (he retired a wealthy man at the age of 42); he also experienced failure (and criticism) and used them to his advantage.

You might not know, for instance, that after numerous mishaps, disasters and penniless adventures, Franklin set up a successful printing business in 1728 (which he ran for 20 years before the reins of the business were transferred to partner David Hall) printing government documents and currencies, legal forms, broadsides, newspapers, almanacs, papers and flyers, as well as the first novel to be published in the United States — Pamela by Samuel Richardson.

Or that Franklin was harshly criticized for his willingness to print unpopular and/ or impolitic content? In Apology for Printers, Franklin demonstrated his belief in a free press, and refused to bow down to the demands of public opinion.

Or that he had the presence of mind to align his actions with his moral compass. Along with many other founding fathers, Franklin profited from slavery, but eventually joined the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery—and worked (eventually, unsuccessfully) to abolish the institution by submitting a petition to the Congress of the United States in 1790.

Tim Ogline’s award-winning illustration work has been published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, and the Utne Reader among others. Ogline’s design practice has served Pennsylvania Governor (and former Philadelphia Mayor) Ed Rendell, SmithKline Beecham, the White House, the National Governors Association, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and many more. Ogline is also an educator as well, teaching in the Illustration and Graphic Design Departments at Moore College of Art & Design and also at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Ogline has also served as the Art Director and as a Contributing Editor for the Wild River Review. Additionally, he is the Creative Director of Wild River Books.

WRR: You’ve said that Ben Franklin would be a technology evangelist today… In what ways?

OGLINE: Franklin was a tremendous innovator, working with what was around him. He used the media to get his message out as well as further his agenda. At sixteen, he wrote the legendary Silence Dogood letters because he wanted to prove himself… and especially to his brother and his peers. He would write pamphlets to promote the public good in making the argument for a paper currency (The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, 1729), the necessity for a militia (Plain Truth, 1747), and the need for quality Pennsylvania institutions of higher learning (Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, 1749). He wrote numerous editorial pieces as well as satires to steer public opinion, including the famous anti-slavery hoax, Address of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim of 1790. He also created his own media channels with The Pennsylvania Gazette (a newspaper purchased from his former employer) and Poor Richard’s Almanack, which allowed him to retire from the printing business as a wealthy man at the age of 42… right at the mid-point of his 84 year long life.

Ben Franklin, were he alive today, would certainly be a technophile. He would likely be on numerous corporate boards and advising venture capital firms. He would absolutely be blogging and podcasting, as well as be widely followed on Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, etc.

Illustration by Ben Franklin

WRR: What drew you to write a book about BEN FRANKLIN? When did the process begin? How long did it take?

Ogline: The genesis of my Franklin project began in 2003 after hearing a story on NPR about the upcoming tercentenary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth in 2006. This became the impetus for a number of book projects that are in various stages of development… including an alphabet book: B. Franklin A to Z, a historical fiction graphic novel: Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty League, the just published Ben Franklin for Beginners (published by For Beginners and distributed by Random House), and a nearly completed graphic novel adaptation of The Way To Wealth(Franklin’s famous fictional Father Abraham speechifcation of 25 years of the most memorable maxims from Poor Richard’s Almanack) originally developed under contract to SmarterComics.

Overall, this project took five years to produce from start to finish (although I was certainly working on other projects in the meantime, including The Way To Wealth as well as my commercial graphic design and illustration work). The book began with the manuscript, then the illustration stage, and then the rewrite, and ultimately on to the design and packaging process.

WRR: What’s are the two most surprising things you learned about Ben Franklin in your research process?

OGLINE: What surprised me most about Franklin stems from preconceptions I had about this garrulous old man with a twinkle in his eye… I never thought of someone who might be motivated by anger.

We’ve all heard (or should have heard) about the dressing down that Franklin received from Lord Alexander Wedderburn on January 29, 1774 before the Privy Council in London in the aftermath of the Hutchinson letters affair. Benjamin Franklin had a comfortable relationship with his British peers at that time… He was an influential Colonial Agent as well as the Deputy Postmaster General of North America, but once his role was exposed in the double game he was playing in the leak of the confidential correspondence of the Royal Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson, that all changed.

He had been publicly humiliated and was then stripped of his post. Benjamin Franklin turned from a loyal British subject into an American. It doesn’t seem to be a slow evolution in political philosophy that occurred in Franklin, but a seismic shift. In the end, it was anger that ignited his Revolutionary zeal.

Another thing that surprised me was related to the subject of African slavery… not necessarily in the fact of its existence, but in its dissonance with Revolutionary ideals. None of the Founding Fathers seemed able to definitively tear down the institution of slavery in America. They made bargains and compromises with themselves and each other to put off the final showdown on the issue. Most people knew it was wrong… they knew it was the great evil of the age. They were too dependent on it in the fabric of the economy and social structure, and that they would never be able to unite the states (particularly the South) if they did the right thing. It was a festering wound that would open into the horrible schism of the Civil War some 80 to 90 years later.

Franklin did own a pair of slaves when he ran his printing business and had servants at other times in his life. He also profited from the slave trade through advertising in his newspaper as well as in other materials he printed.

In 1787, however, he recognized his part in the hypocrisy and joined the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and later submitted a petition in 1790 to the Congress of the United States to abolish the institution when he served as the society’s president.

WRR: Ben Franklin excelled in—and even defined— a number of professions including printer, writer, postmaster, scientist, inventor, public citizen, politician, and diplomat. What didn’t he do? And where do you see his limitations?

OGLINE: I see Franklin’s limitations as chiefly in his own family life… I think he gave himself to the world, but wasn’t quite so giving to those closest to him.

He was abroad serving the interests of the American colonies and away from his wife Deborah for many years at a time. In fact, he was in England from 1764 to 1775—over ten years—despite Deborah’s many pleas to come back. She died of a stroke at the age of sixty-six while he was an ocean away.

He was also unforgiving of his son William, for not following his lead and embracing the Revolutionary cause. William was the Royal Governor of New Jersey, and Franklin demanded his son reject the authority of the Crown. Benjamin Franklin was able to forgive loyalist friends for remaining true to their King, but he would never forgive his son (and would even work toward turning William’s son Temple against his own father).

WRR: Why should children and young adults know about Ben Franklin today?

Ogline: Ben Franklin is the quintessential American success story… from runaway boy to international icon. He was the Horatio Alger story before there was a Horatio Alger. He made his own way and he made his own opportunities, but also knew the importance of making alliances and building powerful networks of like-minded individuals to achieve great things.

Franklin started each day asking himself the question, “What good shall I do today?” And he answered it by making improvements to that which he saw around him… starting with the man in the mirror, and working out to the everyday objects that he made better or invented (bifocals, lightning rod, urinary catheter, Pennsylvania Fireplace), and then on to his very society (helping to create institutions including the Library Company of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, University of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Hospital… and, oh yes, America).

Franklin showed us that we can all do better. We just need to be creative. We need to be bold. We need to want to change the status quo.

WRR: What personally inspired you MOST during the research?

OGLINE: The single most important thing that inspired me during the research was in what this man—as well as the other Founding Fathers—risked in their struggle for American Independence. We’re talking about staking their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor (as Thomas Jefferson put in the “Declaration of Independence”). We’re talking about these men committing treason against the British Crown… If they failed, they would certainly be marched straight to the gallows at bayonet point. As Ben Franklin said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

We assume now that the end-result of the American Revolution was inevitable, not so. Providence and determination was on their side… and a fair amount of luck as well.

WRR: Since you wrote and illustrated Ben Franklin for Beginners, did using these two talents tap into different perspectives on Ben?

Ogline: I’ve had a lifelong passion for storytelling, and have always seen my professional work in graphic design and illustration as using iconographic and conceptual means to engage in storytelling… whether to communicate an idea or to convey a brand value proposition. Another principal medium I’ve used in the practice of storytelling has been in sequential narrative (i.e. comics), but I’ve always been interested in the written word as well and have enjoyed writing as much as making visual representations. Employing storytelling through the combination of text and illustrations in concert was a way for me to represent Ben Franklin, to tell his story.

WRR: What Ben Franklin quote most sums up your writing/ drawing process?

OGLINE:  If you would not be forgotten,

as soon as you’re dead and rotten,

either write things worth reading,

or do things worth the writing.