A History of American Literature

62 The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

By this time, he had also become quite famous thanks to his newspaper, the

Pennsylvania Gazette, and a little book he published annually from 1733. Almanacs

were popular in early America, their principal purpose being to supply farms and

traders with information about the weather and fluctuations in the currency.

Franklin kept this tradition going, but he changed it by adding and gradually

expanding a section consisting of proverbs and little essays, a kind of advice column

that reflected his philosophy of economic and moral individualism. Eventually,

many of the proverbs were brought together in one book, in 1758, that was to

become known as The Way to Wealth; this was a nationwide bestseller and was

reprinted several hundred times. Always, the emphasis here is on the virtues of dili-

gence, thrift, and independence. “Diligence is the mother of good luck,” declares one

proverb. “Plough deep, while sluggards sleep,” says another, “and you shall have corn

to sell and keep.” “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” “The

borrower is a slave to the lender.” “Get all you can, and what you get, hold.” As a

whole, the proverbs reflect the single-mindedness that had helped Franklin himself

along the way to wealth. But they also show Franklin’s wit. As early as 1722, Franklin

had perfected a literary style that combined clarity of expression with sharpness and

subtlety, and frequently humor of perception, in a series of essays called the “Silence

Dogood” papers, after the name of the narrator. In these, Franklin used a fictitious

speaker, the busybody widow Silence Dogood, to satirize follies and vices ranging

from poor poetry to prostitution. And, throughout his life, Franklin was not only an

inventor of proverbial wisdom but a masterly essayist, using his skills to promote

philanthropic and political projects (A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge

(1743); Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania (1749)),

to attack violence against Native Americans or the superstition that led people to

accuse women of witchcraft (A Narrative of the Late Massacres (1764); “A Witch Trial

at Mount Holly” (1730)), and to satirize the slave trade and British imperialism

(“On the Slave Trade” (1790); “An Edict by the King of Prussia” (1773)). Here, he

developed his persona, “the friend of all good men,” and his characteristic argumen-

tative strategy, also enshrined in his Autobiography, of weaving seamlessly together

the imperatives of self-help and altruism, personal need and the claims of society.

Here, and elsewhere, Franklin also elaborated his belief in America. His home-

place, Franklin explained in “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America”

(1784), was a place where “people do not inquire concerning a Stranger, What is he?

But, What can he do?” Anyone with “any useful Art” was welcome. And all “Hearty

young Labouring Men” could “easily establish themselves” there. Not only that, they

could soon rise to a reasonable fortune. They could increase and multiply, since “the

salubrity of the Air, the healthiness of the Climate, the plenty of good Provision, and

the Encouragement to early Marriages by the certainty of Subsistence in cultivating

the Earth” – all these made the growth of population “very rapid in America.” Finally,

they could live good lives. “The almost general Mediocrity of Fortune that prevails

in America,” Franklin explained, obliged all people “to follow some Business for sub-

sistence.” So, “those Vices, that arise usually from Idleness, are in a great measure

prevented”; “Industry and constant Employment” were the “great preservatives of

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