Wade, Benjamin Franklin, 1800-1878, U.S. Senator from Ohio (1851-69), b. near Springfield, Mass. He moved (1821) to Ohio and studied law. He was successively prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula co., state senator, and presiding judge of the third judicial district in Ohio before becoming a Whig Senator. He was reelected as a Republican. An uncompromising abolitionist, he denounced the fugitive slave laws, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and other proslavery measures. During the Civil War, Wade and his radical Republican colleagues set up the meddlesome committee on the conduct of the war, of which he was chairman. The Wade-Davis Bill, drawn up with Representative Henry W. Davis, was approved (July, 1864) by Congress as the committee's plan of Reconstruction. Lincoln, who had already begun a more lenient program, killed it with a pocket veto, for which he was vindictively attacked in the Wade-Davis Manifesto (Aug. 5, 1864). Later the congressional plan prevailed over the opposition of President Andrew Johnson. As president protempore of the Senate, Wade was next in line for the presidency, and he eagerly awaited Johnson's conviction on impeachment charges. Not long after Johnson's acquittal Wade was denied reelection to the Senate and returned to law practice.

Tracy, Benjamin Franklin, 1830-1915, American lawyer, cabinet member, and soldier, b. Owego, N.Y. He was admitted to the bar in 1851 and later served (1853-59) as district attorney of Tioga co., N.Y. He helped organize (1854) the Republican party in his county and served (1862) in the state assembly. In the Civil War he recruited volunteers for the Union army, was wounded in battle, and was mustered out as brigadier general. Tracy served as U.S. district attorney (1866-73) for the eastern district of New York and was defense counsel to Henry Ward Beecher in the adultery suit brought against him by Theodore Tilton. He was (1881-82) judge of the New York court of appeals before becoming Secretary of the Navy (1889-93) under President Benjamin Harrison. Tracy was (1896) chairman of the commission that drafted the charter for Greater New York and served (1899) as counsel for Venezuela in the arbitration of the boundary dispute with Great Britain.

Thwing, Charles Franklin, 1853-1937, American educator and Congregational clergyman, b. New Sharon, Maine, grad. Harvard, 1876, and Andover Theological Seminary, 1879. Until 1890 he served parishes in Cambridge, Mass., and Minneapolis. He was president of Western Reserve Univ. (now Case Western Reserve Univ.) and of Adelbert College (the men's college of that university) from 1890 to his retirement in 1921 and a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation after 1905. He wrote many books on religion and education, including The College President (1926), Education and Religion (1929), and The American College and University (1935).

Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin, 1831-1917, American journalist, author, and philanthropist, b. Hampton Falls, N.H., grad. Harvard, 1855. An active abolitionist, he was a friend and agent of John Brown, although he disapproved of the Harpers Ferry raid. He was a correspondent of the Springfield Republican, editor (1863-67) of the Boston Commonwealth, and a founder of the American Social Science Association and editor (1867-97) of its journal. He served as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Charities and helped found the Massachusetts Infant Asylum, the Clarke School for Deaf Mutes, and the National Prison Association. Long a resident in Concord, he wrote valuable biographies of Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. E. Channing, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and others.

Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 1869-1942, American sectarian leader, b. Missouri. He became leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses (then called Russellites) after the death of the sect's founder, Charles T. Russell, in 1916. Under the direction of Rutherford the Witnesses' attack on the existing social order took on an increasingly revolutionary tone. In 1918 he served a year's imprisonment in Atlanta, Ga., for his encouragement of conscientious objectors. His writings were widely distributed among Witnesses in the United States and abroad.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 1882-1945, 32d President of the United States (1933-45), b. Hyde Park, N.Y.

Early Life

Through both his father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, he came of old, wealthy families. After studying at Groton, Harvard (B.A., 1904), and Columbia Univ. school of law, he began a career as a lawyer. In 1905 he married a distant cousin, a niece of Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt. They had five children: Anna Eleanor, James, Elliott, Franklin D., Jr., and John A. Both Franklin D., Jr., and James served terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Political Start

His political career began when he was elected (1910) to the New York state senate. He became the leader of a group of insurgent Democrats who prevented the Tammany candidate, William F. Sheehan, from being chosen for the U.S. Senate. Roosevelt allied himself firmly with reform elements in the party by his vigorous campaign for Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1912. Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he served in that position from 1913 to 1920 and acquired a reputation as an able administrator. In 1920 he ran as vice presidential nominee with James M. Cox on the Democratic ticket that lost overwhelmingly to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

Affliction and Return to Politics

The following summer, while vacationing on Campobello Island, N.B., Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis. He was paralyzed from the waist down, but by unremitting effort he eventually recovered partial use of his legs. Although crippled to the end of his life, his vigor reasserted itself. He found the waters at Warm Springs, Ga., beneficial, and there he later established a foundation to help other victims of poliomyelitis. Encouraged by his wife and others, he had retained his interest in life and politics and was active in support of the candidacy of Alfred E. Smith in the Democratic conventions of 1924 and 1928.

Persuaded by Smith, Roosevelt ran for the governorship of New York and was elected (1928) by a small plurality despite the defeat of the Democratic ticket nationally. Roosevelt's program of state action for general welfare included a farm-relief plan, a state power authority, regulation of public utilities, and old-age pensions. Roosevelt was reelected governor in 1930, and, to deal with the growing problems of the economic depression, he in 1932 surrounded himself with a small group of intellectuals (later called the Brain Trust) as well as with other experts in many fields. Although his program showed him to be the most vigorous of the governors working for recovery, the problems still remained.

Presidency

New Deal

In July, 1932, Roosevelt was chosen by the Democratic party as its presidential candidate to run against the Republican incumbent, Herbert C. Hoover. In November, Roosevelt was overwhelmingly elected President. He came to the White House at the height of crisis—the economic structure of the country was tottering, and fear and despair hung over the nation. Roosevelt's inaugural address held words of hope and vigor to reassure the troubled country—"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"—and at the same time to prepare it for a prompt and unprecedented emergency program—"This Nation asks for action, and action now. We must act and act quickly." He did act quickly. During the famous "Hundred Days" (Mar.-June, 1933), the administration rushed through Congress a flood of antidepression measures.

Finance and banking were regulated by new laws that loosened credit and insured deposits; the United States went off the gold standard; and a series of government agencies—most notably the National Recovery Administration, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and the Public Works Administration—were set up to reorganize industry and agriculture under controls and to revive the economy by a vast expenditure of public funds. Later on came more reform legislation and new government agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission was set up (1934) to regulate banks and stock exchanges. The Works Progress Administration (later the Work Projects Administration) was intended to offer immediate work programs for the unemployed, while the legislation for social security was a long-range plan for the future protection of the worker in unemployment, sickness, and old age. The government also took a direct role in developing the natural resources of the country with the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) and the Rural Electrification Administration (1935).

The vast, many-faceted program of the New Deal was fashioned with the help of many advisers. Some of the Brain Trust had accompanied Roosevelt to Washington, and counselors, such as Raymond Moley, Rexford Guy Tugwell, and Adolf A. Berle, Jr., were important advisers in the early years, as were some members of the cabinet, including Henry A. Wallace, Harold L. Ickes, Frances Perkins, Cordell Hull, and James A. Farley. Among his other counselors was Harry L. Hopkins. There was sometimes dissension within the ranks of these advisers; a counselor breaking from the group and denouncing the policies of the administration—and sometimes the President himself—became a familiar occurrence. The steady and rapid buildup of the program and the forceful personality of Roosevelt offset early opposition. His reassuring "fireside chats," broadcast to the nation over the radio, helped to explain issues and policies to the people and to hold for him the mandate of the nation.

In 1936, Roosevelt was reelected by a large majority over his Republican opponent, Alfred M. Landon, who won the electoral votes of only two states. However, the impetus of reform had begun to slow. The opposition (generally conservative) turned more bitter toward "that man in the White House," whom they considered a "traitor to his class." Quarrels and shifts among supporters in the government continued to have a divisive effect. The action of the Supreme Court in declaring a number of the New Deal measures invalid—notably those creating the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration—spurred the opponents of Roosevelt and tended to reduce the pace of reform. Roosevelt tried to reorganize the court in 1937, but failed (see Supreme Court). He failed, too, in his attempt to "purge" members of Congress who had opposed New Deal measures; most of those opponents were triumphant in the elections of 1938. However, the dynamic force of the administration continued to be exerted and to impress foreign observers.

The War Years

Apart from extending diplomatic recognition to the USSR (1933), the main focus of Roosevelt's foreign policy in the early years was the cultivation of "hemisphere solidarity." His "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America, which included the signing of reciprocal trade agreements with many countries, greatly improved relations with the neighboring republics to the south. By 1938, however, the international skies were black, and as the power of the Axis nations grew, Roosevelt spoke out against aggression and international greed.

Although the United States refused to recognize Japan's conquest of Manchuria and decried Japanese aggression against China, negotiations with Japan went on even after World War II had broken out in Europe. After the fighting started, the program that Roosevelt had already begun—to build U.S. strength and make the country an "arsenal of democracy"—was speeded up. In the summer of 1940, after the fall of France and while Great Britain was being blitz-bombed by the Germans, aid to Britain (permitted since relaxation of the Neutrality Act) was greatly increased, and in 1941 lend-lease to the Allies was begun. In the presidential election of 1940 both of the major parties supported the national defense program and aid to Britain but opposed the entry of the United States into the war.

In accepting the nomination for that year Roosevelt broke with tradition; never before had a President run for a third term. Some of his former associates were vocal in criticism. John N. Garner, who had been Vice President, was alienated, and the new vice presidential candidate was Henry A. Wallace. James A. Farley, who had been prominent in managing the earlier campaigns, fell away. John L. Lewis, with his large labor following, bitterly denounced Roosevelt. The Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, had much more support than Roosevelt's earlier opponents, but again the President won, if by a closer margin.

The story of his third administration is primarily the story of World War II as it affected the United States. The first peacetime selective service act came into full force. In Aug., 1941, Roosevelt met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at sea and drafted the Atlantic Charter. The United States was becoming more and more aligned with Britain, while U.S. relations with Japan grew steadily worse.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into the war. Much later, accusations of responsibility for negligence at Pearl Harbor, and even for starting the war, were leveled at Roosevelt; historians disagree as to the validity of these charges. Roosevelt was, however, responsible to a large extent for the rapid growth of American military strength. He was not only the active head of a nation at war but also one of the world leaders against all that the Axis powers represented. His diplomatic duties were heavy. There was no conflict within the United States over foreign policy, and the election that occurred in wartime was again largely on domestic issues.

In 1944, Roosevelt, who had chosen Harry S. Truman as his running mate, was triumphant over the Republican Thomas E. Dewey. The turn in the fortunes of war had already come, and the series of international conferences with Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, and others (see Casablanca Conference; Quebec Conference; Tehran Conference; Yalta Conference) began increasingly to include plans for the postwar world. Roosevelt spoke eloquently for human freedom and worked for the establishment of the United Nations.

On Apr. 12, 1945, not quite a month before Germany surrendered to the Allies, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried on the family estate at Hyde Park (much of which he donated to the nation). The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Library is there. Roosevelt's character and achievements are still hotly debated by his fervent admirers and his fierce detractors. However, no one denies his immense energy and self-confidence, his mastery of politics, and the enormous impact his presidency had on the development of the country.

Powell, Lewis Franklin, Jr., 1907-98, American lawyer, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1971-87), b. Suffolk, Va. He studied law at Washington and Lee Univ. and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1931. He had a successful law practice in Richmond and held several local offices. Powell also held several prestigious positions, including president of the American Bar Association and chairman of the Virginia Board of Education. After repeatedly declining President Nixon's requests to join the Supreme Court, he finally accepted (1971) the post. Respected as a conservative in his jurisprudence, he was socially liberal, particularly in his ardent support of school integration. On the Supreme Court, he proved his moderate stance on various issues, voting with the majority in the landmark abortion ruling in Roe v. Wade. His best-known opinion was Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), in which he upheld the principle of affirmative action while rejecting the use of quotas. He was often the swing vote on closely contested decisions.

Pierce, Franklin, 1804-69, 14th President of the United States (1853-57), b. Hillsboro, N.H., grad. Bowdoin College, 1824. Admitted to the bar in 1827, he entered politics as a Jacksonian Democrat, like his father, Benjamin Pierce, who was twice elected governor of New Hampshire (1827, 1829). He served in the New Hampshire general court (1829-33), being speaker in 1831 and 1832, and had an undistinguished career in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833-37) and in the U.S. Senate (1837-42). On resigning from the Senate, he achieved success as a lawyer in Concord, N.H., and continued to be important in state politics. A strong nationalist, he vigorously supported and then served in the Mexican War, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers.

In 1852 the Democratic party was split into hostile factions led by William L. Marcy, Stephen A. Douglas, James Buchanan, and Lewis Cass, none of whom could muster sufficient strength to secure the presidential nomination. Pierce, personally charming and politically unobjectionable to Southerners since he favored the Compromise of 1850, was made the "dark horse" candidate by his friends. He won the nomination (on the 49th ballot) and went on to defeat the Whig candidate, Gen. Winfield Scott, his commander in the Mexican War.

Pierce's desire to smooth over the slavery quarrel and unite all factions of the Democratic party was reflected in the composition of his cabinet, for which he chose such outstanding sectional representatives as Marcy, Jefferson Davis, and Caleb Cushing. A vigorous expansionist foreign policy was adopted, but it failed in most of its objectives. After the Black Warrior affair (1854), which brought the United States to the brink of war with Spain, Pierce authorized his European ministers, Pierre Soulé, John Y. Mason, and Buchanan, to confer on the means by which the United States might acquire Cuba. Their report, the so-called Ostend Manifesto, was leaked to the press and caused such an uproar that the administration was forced to disavow it. Troubled relations with Great Britain were not improved by the U.S. naval bombardment (1854) of San Juan del Norte, British protectorate in Nicaragua; the filibustering activities of William Walker further aggravated Central American affairs. Moves to annex Hawaii, acquire a naval base in Santo Domingo, and purchase Alaska ended fruitlessly. One achievement, the successful Japanese expedition of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, had been initiated in Millard Fillmore's administration.

On the domestic scene Pierce stood for development of the West (the Gadsden Purchase was made during his administration), but plans for a transcontinental railroad fell through. The Kansas-Nebraska Act enraged many Northerners and precipitated virtual civil war between the pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas. Pierce, by that time very unpopular, was passed over by the Democrats for renomination, and Buchanan succeeded him. Pierce's opposition to the Civil War made him more than ever disliked in the North, where he died in obscurity.

Muhammad, Benjamin Franklin Chavis, 1948-, African-American civil-rights and religious leader, b. Oxford, N.C., as Benjamin Franklin Chavis, Jr. An activist from boyhood, he was a youth coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the late 1970s, Chavis was one of ten men wrongly imprisoned (1976-80) after leading a Wilmington, N.C., demonstration. A minister in the United Church of Christ from 1980, he headed (1985-93) that church's Commission for Racial Justice before his 1993 appointment as director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Controversy surrounding his leadership of the NAACP and his handling of sexual harassment and discrimination charges against him led to his dismissal the following year. In 1994-95 he was national director for the Million Man March in Washington (Oct., 1995). In 1997 he announced himself a member of the Nation of Islam (see Black Muslims) and began to preach as a Muslim minister; he changed his surname from Chavis to Muhammad. In 2001 he became president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network,

Lane, Franklin Knight, 1864-1921, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1913-20), b. near Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada. Raised in California, he later studied law and practiced in San Francisco, where he entered Democratic politics and served as city and county attorney. His unsuccessful campaigns for governor of California (1902) and mayor of San Francisco (1903) won national attention, and in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to the Interstate Commerce Commission, on which he sat until 1913, serving briefly as chairman in 1913. As Secretary of the Interior under President Wilson, he was a conservationist. He sought to increase the independence of the Native Americans. He promoted self-government in Alaska and sponsored the Alaska RR from Seward to Fairbanks to tap the interior.

Ladd-Franklin, Christine, 1847-1930, American scientist, b. Windsor, Conn., grad. Vassar 1869. She was the first woman student to enter Johns Hopkins (1878), her special studies being directed toward logic and the theory of color. She studied in Göttingen (1891-92) and worked in Helmholtz's laboratory, developing the theory of color vision that bears her name and that is described in Colour and Colour Theories (1929), a collection of her papers.

Jameson, John Franklin, 1859-1937, American historian, b. Somerville, Mass. After teaching at Johns Hopkins, Brown, and the Univ. of Chicago he was director (1905-28) of the department of historical research of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., and from 1928 to his death he was chief of the division of manuscripts in the Library of Congress. As chairman of the committee of management of the Dictionary of American Biography he was largely responsible for the inauguration and completion of that monumental work. In these and other undertakings, Jameson exercised much influence in American historical scholarship. He wrote The History of Historical Writing in America (1891) and The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (1926) and edited Correspondence of John C. Calhoun (1900, repr. 1969).

Hoxie, Robert Franklin, 1868-1916, American economist, b. Edmeston, W of Cooperstown, N.Y., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1905. He taught at the Univ. of Chicago from 1906 to 1916. A realistic interpreter of the changing economic system in the United States, he was noted for his work in labor history. As special investigator (1914-15) for the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations he produced Scientific Management and Labor (1915). His Trade Unionism in the United States (ed. by L. B. Hoxie and Nathan Fine, 1917; 2d ed. 1923, repr. 1966), though incomplete, is his most important work.

Houston, David Franklin, 1866-1940, American cabinet officer and educator, b. Monroe, N.C., grad. South Carolina College, 1887, M.A. Harvard, 1892. He taught political science at the Univ. of Texas (1894-1902) and was later president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (1902-5), president of the Univ. of Texas (1905-8), and chancellor of Washington Univ. in St. Louis (1908-16). He served in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet first as Secretary of Agriculture (1913-20), then as Secretary of the Treasury (1920-21). He later entered business in New York City.

Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Giddings, Franklin Henry, 1855-1931, American sociologist, b. Fairfield co., Conn., grad. Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. In 1894 he became professor of sociology at Columbia, where he earned a reputation as a brilliant teacher. His explanation of social phenomena was based on the principle of "consciousness of kind"—his theory that each person has an innate sense of belonging to particular social groups. Giddings encouraged statistical studies in sociology. His most important works are The Principles of Sociology (1896), Studies in the Theory of Human Society (1922), and The Scientific Study of Human Society (1924).

Franklin, William, c.1730-1813, last royal governor of New Jersey; illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. He grew up in Philadelphia, served in King George's War, and was (1754-56) comptroller of the general post office in Philadelphia. In 1757 he went with his father to England, where he studied law and through influential friends was appointed (1763) governor of New Jersey. Although well-liked at first, his strong attachment to England and British authority soon made him unpopular. After the American Revolution began, he sided with the Loyalists and quarreled bitterly with his father. The New Jersey congress ordered (1776) his arrest, and he was imprisoned in Connecticut until he was exchanged in 1778. Franklin went to England in 1782, never to return. In 1784 he was reconciled with his father.

Franklin, State of, government (1784-88) formed by the inhabitants of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties in present-day E Tennessee after North Carolina ceded (June, 1784) its western lands to the United States. Following preliminary conventions at Jonesboro (Aug. and Dec., 1784), the first assembly, meeting at Greeneville early in 1785, elected John Sevier governor for a three-year term, established courts, appointed magistrates, levied taxes, and enacted laws. A permanent constitution was adopted in Nov., 1785. Unable to secure congressional recognition and pressed by North Carolina in its attempt to reestablish jurisdiction (in Dec., 1784, North Carolina repealed the act ceding the lands), Sevier's government passed out of existence when the terms of its officers expired. The region reverted temporarily to North Carolina.

Franklin, Sir John, 1786-1847, British explorer in N Canada whose disappearance caused a widespread search of the Arctic. Entering the navy in 1801, he fought in the battle of Trafalgar. On his first overland expedition (1819-22) in N Canada, his party crossed the barren grounds from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic coast at the mouth of the Coppermine River and explored eastward along the coast for c.175 mi (280 km). In his Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea (1823, repr. 1969), Franklin describes this journey. On his next expedition (1825-27), the party descended the Mackenzie River and surveyed another long stretch of the Arctic shoreline, westward to Return Reef (c.160 mi/260 km from Point Barrow, Alaska) and eastward to the mouth of the Coppermine. By way of the Coppermine he went to Great Bear Lake, where he built Fort Franklin (now Déline). Franklin's Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea (1828, repr. 1968) is an account of these feats. On both of these expeditions he was accompanied by Sir George Back. After serving (1836-43) as governor of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), Franklin set out in the Erebus and the Terror in 1845 to search for the Northwest Passage. When, three years later, no word from him had been received, there was dispatched the first of the more than 40 parties that in the following years were to search the Arctic for traces of the expedition. Although the geographical knowledge gained by the searchers was immense, no certain clues as to Franklin's fate were revealed until John Rae, in 1853-54, and Sir Francis McClintock, between 1857 and 1859, found evidence of the great arctic tragedy. The latter expedition, fitted by Lady Franklin, found records at Point Victory that established that Franklin's ships had been frozen in the ice between Victoria Island and King William Island. After his death in 1847, the survivors had abandoned ship in 1848 and had undertaken a journey southward over the frozen wastes of Boothia Peninsula toward civilization. Of the entire expedition of some 129 men, not one is known to have survived. Relics and documents of the Franklin party and of later search expeditions have been found as recently as 1960, and the quest for Franklin's diaries is still being continued.

Franklin, John Hope, 1915-, the dean of African-American historians, b. Rentiesville, Okla., grad. Fisk Univ. (A.B., 1935), Harvard Univ. (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941). Franklin served on the faculties of his alma mater (1936-37), St. Augustine's College (1939-43), North Carolina College (1943-47), Howard Univ. (1947-56), Brooklyn College (1956-64), and the Univ. of Chicago (1964-82) before assuming (1982) the James B. Duke Professorship of History at Duke Univ. He became professor emeritus in 1985, but taught at Duke's law school from 1985 to 1992. Franklin was also president of Phi Beta Kappa (1973-76), the American Historical Association (1978-79), and several other scholarly organizations.

His many publications have focused on the history of the American South and on the African-American contribution to the development of the United States. His best-known book, the pioneering and now classic From Slavery to Freedom (1947; 8th ed. 2000), revolutionized the understanding of African-American history and changed the way the subject is taught throughout the United States. Among Franklin's other works are The Militant South: 1800-1860 (1956), Reconstruction after the Civil War (1961), Color and Race (1968), Racial Equality in America (1976), Race and History (1989), The Color Line (1993), and In Search of the Promised Land (with L. Schweninger, 2005). He has also edited a number of books, including a 1997 autobiography of his father, an Oklahoma lawyer. Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 and was appointed President Clinton's adviser on race two years later. His papers form the nucleus of Duke's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African-American Documentation.

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-90, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, b. Boston. The only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, he is best remembered in the United States as a patriot and diplomat.

Printer and Writer

The son of a tallow chandler and soapmaker, Franklin left school at 10 years of age to help his father. He then was apprenticed to his half brother James, a printer and publisher of the New England Courant, to which young Ben secretly contributed. After much disagreement he left his brother's employment and went (1723) to Philadelphia to work as a printer. Industry and thrift—qualities he was to praise later—helped him to better himself.

After a sojourn in London (1724-26), he returned and in 1729 acquired an interest in the Pennsylvania Gazette. As owner and editor after 1730, he made the periodical popular. His common sense philosophy and his neatly turned phrases won public attention in the Gazette, in the later General Magazine, and especially in his Poor Richard's Almanack, which he published from 1732 to 1757. Many sayings of Poor Richard, praising prudence, common sense, and honesty, became standard American proverbs.

Franklin also interested himself in selling books, established a circulating library, organized a debating club that developed into the American Philosophical Society, helped to establish (1751) an academy that eventually became the Univ. of Pennsylvania, and brought about civic reforms. His writings are still widely known today, especially his autobiography (covering only his early years), which is generally considered one of the finest autobiographies in any language and has appeared in innumerable editions.

Scientist

Franklin had steadily extended his own knowledge by study of foreign languages, philosophy, and science. He repeated the experiments of other scientists and showed his usual practical bent by inventing such diverse things as the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses, and a glass harmonica (which he called an armonica; see harmonica 2). The phenomenon of electricity interested him deeply, and in 1748 he turned his printing business over to his foreman, intending to devote his life to science. His experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm, which showed that lightning is an electrical discharge (but which he may not have personally performed), and his invention of the lightning rod were among a series of investigations that won him recognition from the leading scientists in England and on the Continent.

Statesman

Diplomat from Pennsylvania

Franklin held local public offices and served long (1753-74) as deputy postmaster general of the colonies. As such he reorganized the postal system, making it both efficient and profitable. His status as a public figure grew steadily. A Pennsylvania delegate to the Albany Congress (1754), he proposed there a plan of union for the colonies, which was accepted by the delegates but later rejected by both the provincial assemblies and the British government. He worked for the British cause in the French and Indian War, especially by providing transportation for the ill-fated expedition led by Edward Braddock against Fort Duquesne. Franklin was a leader of the popular party in Pennsylvania against the Penn family, who were the proprietors, and in 1757 he was sent to England to present the case against the Penns. He won (1760) for the colony the right to tax the Penn estates but advised moderation in applying the right.

He returned to America for two years (1762-64) but was in England when the Stamp Act caused a furor. Again he showed prudent moderation; he protested the act but asked the colonists to obey the law, thus losing some popularity in the colonies until he stoutly defended American rights at the time of the debates on repeal of the act. He was made agent for Georgia (1768), New Jersey (1769), and Massachusetts (1770) and seriously considered making his home in England, where his scientific attainments, his brilliant mind, and his social gifts of wit and urbanity had gained him a high place.

Revolutionary Leader

As trouble between the British government and the colonies grew with the approach of the American Revolution, Franklin's deep love for his native land and his devotion to individual freedom brought (1775) him back to America. There, while his illegitimate son, William Franklin, was becoming a leader of the Loyalists, Benjamin Franklin became one of the greatest statesmen of the American Revolution and of the newborn nation. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was appointed postmaster general, and was sent to Canada with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton to persuade the people of Canada to join the patriot cause. He was appointed (1776) to the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, which he signed.

Late in 1776 he sailed to France to join Arthur Lee and Silas Deane in their diplomatic efforts for the new republic. Franklin, with a high reputation in France well supported by his winning presence, did much to gain French recognition of the new republic in 1778. Franklin helped to direct U.S. naval operations and was a successful agent for the United States in Europe—the sole one after suspicions and quarrels caused Congress to annul the powers of the other American commissioners.

He was chosen (1781) as one of the American diplomats to negotiate peace with Great Britain and laid the groundwork for the treaty before John Jay and John Adams arrived. British naval victory in the West Indies made the final treaty less advantageous to the United States than Franklin's original draft. The Treaty of Paris was, in contradiction of the orders of Congress, concluded in 1783 without the concurrence of France, because Jay and Adams distrusted the French.

Constitutional Convention Delegate

Franklin returned in 1785 to the United States and was made president of the Pennsylvania executive council. The last great service rendered to his country by this "wisest American," as he is sometimes called, was his part in the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787. Although his proposals for a single-chamber congress and a weak executive council were rejected, he helped to direct the compromise that brought the Constitution of the United States into being. Though not completely satisfied with the finished product, he worked earnestly for its ratification.

Franklin, Aretha, 1942-, American singer, b. Memphis. She began singing in the choir of her father's church. Known as the "Queen of Soul," she recorded such hits as "Respect," "Chain of Fools," and "Who's Zoomin' Who," "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman," and "Highway of Love."

Franklin, Ann Smith, 1696-1763, American printer; sister-in-law of Benjamin Franklin. After the death in 1735 of her husband, James Franklin, she carried on his commercial printing business, in Newport, R.I., aided by two daughters and her son James. She printed a series of almanacs: the first numbers (1728-35) were written by Joseph Stafford and published by James Franklin. Those published from 1736 to 1741 she wrote herself. Franklin published the Newport Mercury and, as colony printer, printed its many legal documents and its paper money. In 1748 her son James became her partner.

Franklin and Marshall College, at Lancaster, Pa.; United Church of Christ (Evangelical-Reformed); coeducational; est. 1787 as Franklin College, reorganized 1853 when it merged with Marshall College (chartered 1836).

Franklin Square, uninc. city (1990 pop. 28,205), Nassau co., SE N.Y., on Long Island. Although it is chiefly residential, there is significant manufacturing, including fire extinguishers, dye castings, electrical machinery, and lighting fixtures.

Franklin Park, village (1990 pop. 18,485), Cook co., NE Ill., a suburb of Chicago; inc. 1892. It is chiefly residential.

Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia; chartered and opened 1824 "for the promotion of the mechanic arts," the first of its kind in the country. It was named for Benjamin Franklin. Since the 19th cent. it has been noted for its lecture series, trade exhibitions, investigations of new inventions, and work on governmental, industrial and scientific problems. The Journal of the Franklin Institute (published continuously since 1826) enjoys wide recognition, and its library is one of the outstanding technical collections in the country.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake: see under Grand Coulee Dam.

Franklin. 1 City (1990 pop. 12,907), seat of Johnson co., S central Ind., inc. 1823. It is a farm trade center. Manufactures include auto parts, aluminum doors and windows, and copper panels. Franklin College of Indiana is there. 2 City (1990 pop. 11,026), Warren co., SW Ohio, on the Great Miami River, in a farm area; inc. 1813. Paper products are manufactured in the city, which was a flourishing river port in the mid-19th cent. 3 City (1990 pop. 21,855), Milwaukee co., W central Wis., a residential suburb of Milwaukee; inc. 1956.

Franklin, river: see Gordon, river.

Enders, John Franklin, 1897-1985, American bacteriologist, b. West Hartford, Conn., grad. Yale, 1920, Ph.D. Harvard, 1930. He began teaching at Harvard in 1929, became associate professor in 1942, and joined the research staff of Children's Hospital, Boston. The 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Enders, T. H. Weller, and F. C. Robbins for their success in growing polio viruses in cultures of various tissues.

Chavis, Benjamin Franklin, Jr.: see Muhammad, Benjamin Franklin.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 1795-1858, American political leader and cabinet officer, b. Columbia co., N.Y. Butler, like his former law associate, Martin Van Buren, was a member of the Albany Regency, and he devoted himself and his considerable power to reform politics. He was Attorney General (1833-37) under President Jackson and for a time held (1836-37) that post and the office of Secretary of War concurrently. He also served (1837-38) as Attorney General under President Van Buren, but he refused later cabinet appointments. He helped to revise (1825) the New York State statutes and organized what is today the law school of New York Univ.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 1818-93, American politician and Union general in the Civil War, b. Deerfield, N.H. He moved to Lowell, Mass., as a youth and later practiced law there and in Boston. He was elected to the state legislature in 1852 and 1858 and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1859 and 1860. Butler was a Democrat but a strong Unionist. At the beginning of the Civil War his contingent of Massachusetts militia was one of the first to reach Washington. He restored order (May, 1861) in secessionist Baltimore and was given command at Fort Monroe. He commanded the troops that accompanied Admiral Farragut in taking New Orleans and was made military governor of the city. There his highhanded rule (May-Dec., 1862) infuriated the people of New Orleans and the South and earned him the name "Beast." The government, severely criticized both at home and abroad for his actions, finally removed him. In May, 1864, as commander of the Army of the James, Butler was defeated by Beauregard at Drewry's Bluff and was bottled up at Bermuda Hundred until Grant crossed the James in June. After he failed to take Fort Fisher in Dec., 1864, he was removed from active command. From 1867 to 1875 Butler, by then a rabid radical Republican, was in Congress. He was one of the House managers who conducted the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, and he ardently advocated the party's Reconstruction policy. He was said to have great influence with President Grant. Butler was (1877-79) an independent Greenbacker in Congress. After several unsuccessful attempts to secure the governorship of Massachusetts, he was elected by the Greenbackers and Democrats in 1882. In 1884 he received the nominations of the Anti-Monopoly and Greenback parties for President. Regarded by many as an unprincipled demagogue of great ability, Butler aroused intense antagonisms and was nearly always in controversy.

Buchanan, Franklin, 1800-1874, American naval officer, b. Baltimore. Appointed a midshipman in 1815, Buchanan rose to be a commander in 1841. He was chief adviser to Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft in planning the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and was its first superintendent (1845-47). In Sept., 1861, he took the rank of captain in the Confederate navy, commanding the Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) against the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads (Mar. 8, 1863). Wounded in that engagement, he took no part in the battle of the Monitor and Merrimack the next day. Promoted to ranking officer in the Confederate navy, he was forced to surrender to David G. Farragut in the battle of Mobile Bay (Aug. 5, 1864).

Bache, Benjamin Franklin, 1769-98, American journalist, b. Philadelphia; son of Richard Bache and grandson of Benjamin Franklin. In 1790 he founded the Philadelphia General Advertiser (later the Aurora). As the champion of the Jeffersonians, Bache's paper denounced the Federalists bitterly, and he was arrested under the Sedition Act (see Alien and Sedition Acts) but was released on parole. He died soon afterward of yellow fever.

Atherton, Gertrude Franklin (Horn), 1857-1948, American writer, b. San Francisco. She wrote a series of historical novels about California, which include The Californians (1898), Rezánov (1906), and The Ancestors (1907). Her most popular books are The Conqueror (1902), which is a fictionalized biography of Alexander Hamilton, and the sensational novel Black Oxen (1923), concerning a woman who is rejuvenated by a glandular operation and based on Atherton's own experience of glandular therapy.

Adams, Franklin Pierce, pseud. F. P. A., 1881-1960, American columnist and author, b. Chicago. He began (1903) work as a columnist on the Chicago Journal and continued it on the New York Evening Mail, the Tribune, the World, the Herald Tribune, and the Post. His column, "The Conning Tower," consisted of verse and humor by F. P. A. and his contributors, who included Ring Lardner and Dorothy Parker. On Saturdays his columns were accounts of his week's activities that imitated the style of Samuel Pepys. They were republished as The Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys: 1911-1934 (1935). Adams's other works included So There! (1923), Christopher Columbus (1931), and Nods and Becks (1944).

(born Oct. 27, 1800, Springfield, Mass., U.S.—died March 2, 1878, Jefferson, Ohio) U.S. politician. He practiced law in Ohio before serving in the U.S. Senate (1851–69), where he opposed the extension of slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the American Civil War he joined the Radical Republicans in demanding vigorous prosecution of the war and headed a joint congressional committee to investigate the Union military effort. He cosponsored the Wade-Davis Bill, which brought him into conflict with Abraham Lincoln. Opposed to Pres. Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies, he voted for his removal from office at his Senate trial and, as Senate president pro tem, prepared to succeed Johnson. Disappointed by the trial's outcome, he was later defeated for reelection.

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(born April 26, 1830, near Owego, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 6, 1915, New York, N.Y.) U.S. public official. He served as a county district attorney (1853–59) and, after fighting in the American Civil War, as U.S. attorney (1866–73). Appointed secretary of the navy (1889–93) by Pres. Benjamin Harrison, he continued the expansion of the navy begun by William C. Whitney, authorizing construction of new battleships and cruisers. His departmental reforms and modernization contributed to eventual U.S. naval superiority.

Learn more about Tracy, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 30, 1882, Hyde Park, N.Y., U.S.—died April 12, 1945, Warm Springs, Ga.) 32nd president of the U.S. (1933–45). Attracted to politics by the example of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, he became active in the Democratic Party. In 1905 he married Eleanor Roosevelt, who would become a valued adviser in future years. He served in the New York senate (1910–13) and as U.S. assistant secretary of the navy (1913–20). In 1920 he was nominated by the Democrats as their vice presidential candidate. The next year he was stricken with polio; though unable to walk, he remained active in politics. As governor of New York (1929–33), he set up the first state relief agency in the U.S. In 1932 he won the Democratic presidential nomination with the help of James Farley and easily defeated Pres. Herbert Hoover. In his inaugural address to a nation of more than 13 million unemployed, he pronounced that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Congress passed most of the changes he sought in his New Deal program in the first hundred days of his term. He was overwhelmingly reelected in 1936 over Alf Landon. To solve legal challenges to the New Deal, he proposed enlarging the Supreme Court, but his “court-packing” plan aroused strong opposition and had to be abandoned. By the late 1930s economic recovery had slowed, but Roosevelt was increasingly concerned with the growing threat of war. In 1940 he was reelected to an unprecedented third term, defeating Wendell Willkie. He developed the lend-lease program to aid U.S. allies, especially Britain, in the early years of World War II. In 1941 he met with Winston Churchill to draft the Atlantic Charter. With U.S. entry into war, Roosevelt mobilized industry for military production and formed an alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union; he met with Churchill and Joseph Stalin to form war policy at Tehrān (1943) and Yalta (1945). Despite declining health, he won reelection for a fourth term against Thomas Dewey (1944) but served only briefly before his death.

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(born Nov. 23, 1804, Hillsboro, N.H., U.S.—died Oct. 8, 1869, Concord, N.H.) 14th president of the U.S. (1853–57). He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 to 1837 and in the Senate from 1837 to 1842. At the deadlocked Democratic Party convention of 1852, he was nominated as a compromise presidential candidate; though largely unknown nationally, he unexpectedly trounced Winfield Scott in the general election. For the sake of harmony and business prosperity, he was inclined to oppose antislavery agitation. His promotion of U.S. territorial expansion resulted in the diplomatic controversy of the Ostend Manifesto. He reorganized the diplomatic and consular service and created the U.S. Court of Claims. Pierce encouraged plans for a transcontinental railroad and approved the Gadsden Purchase. To promote northwestern migration and conciliate sectional demands, he approved the Kansas-Nebraska Act but was unable to settle the resultant problems. Defeated for renomination by James Buchanan in 1856, he retired from politics.

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orig. Christine Ladd

(born Dec. 1, 1847, Windsor, Conn., U.S.—died March 5, 1930, New York, N.Y.) U.S. scientist and logician. She fulfilled Ph.D. requirements at Johns Hopkins University in the 1880s, but, because women candidates were not recognized, she was not awarded her degree until 1926. In symbolic logic, she reduced syllogistic reasoning to an inconsistent triad with the introduction of the antilogism, a form that made the testing of deductions easier. The Ladd-Franklin theory of colour vision stressed increasing colour differentiation with evolution and assumed a photochemical model for the visual system. Her principal works are The Algebra of Logic (1883), The Nature of Color Sensation (1925), and Color and Color Theories (1929).

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(born Jan. 2, 1915, Rentiesville, Okla., U.S.) U.S. historian. He attended Fisk University and received graduate degrees from Harvard and has taught at many colleges and universities, including Howard, Chicago, and Duke. He first gained international attention with From Slavery to Freedom (1947). He helped fashion the legal brief that led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. He was the first black president of the American Historical Association (1978–79) and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.

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(born Jan. 2, 1915, Rentiesville, Okla., U.S.) U.S. historian. He attended Fisk University and received graduate degrees from Harvard and has taught at many colleges and universities, including Howard, Chicago, and Duke. He first gained international attention with From Slavery to Freedom (1947). He helped fashion the legal brief that led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. He was the first black president of the American Historical Association (1978–79) and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.

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(born Jan. 17, 1706, Boston, Mass.—died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) American printer and publisher, author, scientist and inventor, and diplomat. He was apprenticed at age 12 to his brother, a local printer. He taught himself to write effectively, and in 1723 he moved to Philadelphia, where he founded the Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–48) and wrote Poor Richard's almanac (1732–57), often remembered for its proverbs and aphorisms emphasizing prudence, industry, and honesty. He became prosperous and promoted public services in Philadelphia, including a library, a fire department, a hospital, an insurance company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania. His inventions include the Franklin stove and bifocal spectacles, and his experiments helped pioneer the understanding of electricity. He served as a member of the colonial legislature (1736–51). He was a delegate to the Albany Congress (1754), where he put forth a plan for colonial union. He represented the colony in England in a dispute over land and taxes (1757–62); he returned there in 1764. The issue of taxation gradually caused him to abandon his longtime support for continued American colonial membership in the British Empire. Believing that taxation ought to be the prerogative of the representative legislatures, he opposed the Stamp Act. He served as a delegate to the second Continental Congress and as a member of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. In 1776 he went to France to seek aid for the American Revolution. Lionized by the French, he negotiated a treaty that provided loans and military support for the U.S. He also played a crucial role in bringing about the final peace treaty with Britain in 1783. As a member of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he was instrumental in achieving adoption of the Constitution of the U.S. He is regarded as one of the most extraordinary and brilliant public servants in U.S. history.

Learn more about Franklin, Benjamin with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 25, 1942, Memphis, Tenn., U.S.) U.S. popular singer. Franklin's family moved from Memphis to Detroit when she was two. Her father, C.L. Franklin, was a well-known revivalist preacher; his church and home were visited by musical luminaries such as Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and Dinah Washington. Franklin made her first recording at age 12. At first she performed only gospel music, but at age 18 she switched from sacred to secular music. After struggling for a number of years to achieve crossover success, in 1967 her powerful and fervent voice took the country by storm as she began to release a string of songs including “I Never Loved a Man,” “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” and “Natural Woman.” Her rousing mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Learn more about Franklin, Aretha (Louise) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Nov. 23, 1804, Hillsboro, N.H., U.S.—died Oct. 8, 1869, Concord, N.H.) 14th president of the U.S. (1853–57). He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 to 1837 and in the Senate from 1837 to 1842. At the deadlocked Democratic Party convention of 1852, he was nominated as a compromise presidential candidate; though largely unknown nationally, he unexpectedly trounced Winfield Scott in the general election. For the sake of harmony and business prosperity, he was inclined to oppose antislavery agitation. His promotion of U.S. territorial expansion resulted in the diplomatic controversy of the Ostend Manifesto. He reorganized the diplomatic and consular service and created the U.S. Court of Claims. Pierce encouraged plans for a transcontinental railroad and approved the Gadsden Purchase. To promote northwestern migration and conciliate sectional demands, he approved the Kansas-Nebraska Act but was unable to settle the resultant problems. Defeated for renomination by James Buchanan in 1856, he retired from politics.

Learn more about Pierce, Franklin with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 30, 1882, Hyde Park, N.Y., U.S.—died April 12, 1945, Warm Springs, Ga.) 32nd president of the U.S. (1933–45). Attracted to politics by the example of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, he became active in the Democratic Party. In 1905 he married Eleanor Roosevelt, who would become a valued adviser in future years. He served in the New York senate (1910–13) and as U.S. assistant secretary of the navy (1913–20). In 1920 he was nominated by the Democrats as their vice presidential candidate. The next year he was stricken with polio; though unable to walk, he remained active in politics. As governor of New York (1929–33), he set up the first state relief agency in the U.S. In 1932 he won the Democratic presidential nomination with the help of James Farley and easily defeated Pres. Herbert Hoover. In his inaugural address to a nation of more than 13 million unemployed, he pronounced that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Congress passed most of the changes he sought in his New Deal program in the first hundred days of his term. He was overwhelmingly reelected in 1936 over Alf Landon. To solve legal challenges to the New Deal, he proposed enlarging the Supreme Court, but his “court-packing” plan aroused strong opposition and had to be abandoned. By the late 1930s economic recovery had slowed, but Roosevelt was increasingly concerned with the growing threat of war. In 1940 he was reelected to an unprecedented third term, defeating Wendell Willkie. He developed the lend-lease program to aid U.S. allies, especially Britain, in the early years of World War II. In 1941 he met with Winston Churchill to draft the Atlantic Charter. With U.S. entry into war, Roosevelt mobilized industry for military production and formed an alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union; he met with Churchill and Joseph Stalin to form war policy at Tehrān (1943) and Yalta (1945). Despite declining health, he won reelection for a fourth term against Thomas Dewey (1944) but served only briefly before his death.

Learn more about Roosevelt, Franklin D(elano) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 12, 1928, Washington, D.C., U.S.) U.S. playwright. He was the adopted grandson and namesake of a well-known vaudeville theatre manager. Among his early one-act plays, The Zoo Story (1959), The Sandbox (1959), and The American Dream (1961) established him as an astute critic of American values. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962; film, 1966), his first full-length play, was widely acclaimed. Albee won Pulitzer Prizes for A Delicate Balance (1966), Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1994). He also adapted other writers' works for the stage, including Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1981).

Learn more about Albee, Edward (Franklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

orig. Christine Ladd

(born Dec. 1, 1847, Windsor, Conn., U.S.—died March 5, 1930, New York, N.Y.) U.S. scientist and logician. She fulfilled Ph.D. requirements at Johns Hopkins University in the 1880s, but, because women candidates were not recognized, she was not awarded her degree until 1926. In symbolic logic, she reduced syllogistic reasoning to an inconsistent triad with the introduction of the antilogism, a form that made the testing of deductions easier. The Ladd-Franklin theory of colour vision stressed increasing colour differentiation with evolution and assumed a photochemical model for the visual system. Her principal works are The Algebra of Logic (1883), The Nature of Color Sensation (1925), and Color and Color Theories (1929).

Learn more about Ladd-Franklin, Christine with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born , Nov. 5, 1818, Deerfield, N.H., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1893, Washington, D.C.) U.S. army officer. A prominent attorney in Lowell, Mass., Butler served two terms in the state legislature (1853, 1859). In the American Civil War he commanded Fort Monroe, Va., where he refused to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, calling them “contraband of war,” an interpretation later upheld by the government. He oversaw the occupation of New Orleans in 1862 but was recalled because of his harsh rule. He led the Union army in Virginia, but after several defeats he was relieved of his command in 1865. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1867–75, 1877–79), he was a Radical Republican prominent in the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson. He switched parties in 1878 to support the Greenback movement and later served as governor of Massachusetts (1882–84).

Learn more about Butler, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Oct. 27, 1800, Springfield, Mass., U.S.—died March 2, 1878, Jefferson, Ohio) U.S. politician. He practiced law in Ohio before serving in the U.S. Senate (1851–69), where he opposed the extension of slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the American Civil War he joined the Radical Republicans in demanding vigorous prosecution of the war and headed a joint congressional committee to investigate the Union military effort. He cosponsored the Wade-Davis Bill, which brought him into conflict with Abraham Lincoln. Opposed to Pres. Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies, he voted for his removal from office at his Senate trial and, as Senate president pro tem, prepared to succeed Johnson. Disappointed by the trial's outcome, he was later defeated for reelection.

Learn more about Wade, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 26, 1830, near Owego, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 6, 1915, New York, N.Y.) U.S. public official. He served as a county district attorney (1853–59) and, after fighting in the American Civil War, as U.S. attorney (1866–73). Appointed secretary of the navy (1889–93) by Pres. Benjamin Harrison, he continued the expansion of the navy begun by William C. Whitney, authorizing construction of new battleships and cruisers. His departmental reforms and modernization contributed to eventual U.S. naval superiority.

Learn more about Tracy, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born , Nov. 5, 1818, Deerfield, N.H., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1893, Washington, D.C.) U.S. army officer. A prominent attorney in Lowell, Mass., Butler served two terms in the state legislature (1853, 1859). In the American Civil War he commanded Fort Monroe, Va., where he refused to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, calling them “contraband of war,” an interpretation later upheld by the government. He oversaw the occupation of New Orleans in 1862 but was recalled because of his harsh rule. He led the Union army in Virginia, but after several defeats he was relieved of his command in 1865. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1867–75, 1877–79), he was a Radical Republican prominent in the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson. He switched parties in 1878 to support the Greenback movement and later served as governor of Massachusetts (1882–84).

Learn more about Butler, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 17, 1706, Boston, Mass.—died April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) American printer and publisher, author, scientist and inventor, and diplomat. He was apprenticed at age 12 to his brother, a local printer. He taught himself to write effectively, and in 1723 he moved to Philadelphia, where he founded the Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–48) and wrote Poor Richard's almanac (1732–57), often remembered for its proverbs and aphorisms emphasizing prudence, industry, and honesty. He became prosperous and promoted public services in Philadelphia, including a library, a fire department, a hospital, an insurance company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania. His inventions include the Franklin stove and bifocal spectacles, and his experiments helped pioneer the understanding of electricity. He served as a member of the colonial legislature (1736–51). He was a delegate to the Albany Congress (1754), where he put forth a plan for colonial union. He represented the colony in England in a dispute over land and taxes (1757–62); he returned there in 1764. The issue of taxation gradually caused him to abandon his longtime support for continued American colonial membership in the British Empire. Believing that taxation ought to be the prerogative of the representative legislatures, he opposed the Stamp Act. He served as a delegate to the second Continental Congress and as a member of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. In 1776 he went to France to seek aid for the American Revolution. Lionized by the French, he negotiated a treaty that provided loans and military support for the U.S. He also played a crucial role in bringing about the final peace treaty with Britain in 1783. As a member of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he was instrumental in achieving adoption of the Constitution of the U.S. He is regarded as one of the most extraordinary and brilliant public servants in U.S. history.

Learn more about Franklin, Benjamin with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 25, 1942, Memphis, Tenn., U.S.) U.S. popular singer. Franklin's family moved from Memphis to Detroit when she was two. Her father, C.L. Franklin, was a well-known revivalist preacher; his church and home were visited by musical luminaries such as Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and Dinah Washington. Franklin made her first recording at age 12. At first she performed only gospel music, but at age 18 she switched from sacred to secular music. After struggling for a number of years to achieve crossover success, in 1967 her powerful and fervent voice took the country by storm as she began to release a string of songs including “I Never Loved a Man,” “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” and “Natural Woman.” Her rousing mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Learn more about Franklin, Aretha (Louise) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 12, 1928, Washington, D.C., U.S.) U.S. playwright. He was the adopted grandson and namesake of a well-known vaudeville theatre manager. Among his early one-act plays, The Zoo Story (1959), The Sandbox (1959), and The American Dream (1961) established him as an astute critic of American values. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962; film, 1966), his first full-length play, was widely acclaimed. Albee won Pulitzer Prizes for A Delicate Balance (1966), Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1994). He also adapted other writers' works for the stage, including Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1981).

Learn more about Albee, Edward (Franklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.