CA - Benjamin Franklin and The Great Awakening Lesson

Benjamin Franklin and The Great Awakening

Portrait of Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, along with George Washington, is the best known of America's Founding Fathers. Franklin was born into a poor Boston family in 1706. At age 12 he became an apprentice to one of his brothers who was a printer. At age 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia to start a life of his own choosing, independent from his family. A few months later, he sailed to London to gain more experience in the printing business. He returned to Philadelphia in 1726 as an experienced printer, writer, and businessman. These are just some examples of how, throughout his life, Franklin sought ways to improve himself (individualism) and rise in society (social mobility). Over his 84-year life, Franklin succeeded in making himself one of the world's leading authors, philosophers, scientists, inventors, and politicians.

The Great Awakening

Christian worship changed in the 1730s and 1740s in the northeastern colonies. Ministers said the people would feel God's love only if they admitted their sins. The people were told that each believer should seek his or her own personal and emotional relationship with God, and that doing this was more important than the Puritan idea of congregations needing to gather together to hear intellectual sermons. Ministers preaching such sermons attracted enormous audiences and often traveled from colony to colony to preach to anyone who wanted to listen, regardless of what church he or she might belong to. Two of the most well known preachers of the Great Awakening were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Christianity grew although established churches lost members to the new way of Christian worship. Some preachers said American society had become as corrupt as the English society the colonist's ancestors had escaped. As a result, some people started saying that America needed to cut its ties with Britain to keep its religion pure.

Finally, click here to read the selections from Digital History. You are expected to read from "English Colonization Begins" to "The Great Awakening." Links to an external site.

 

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