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"Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing."
—Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin’s friends provided personal solace and played an instrumental role in shaping his ideas and the very foundations of America.
Despite their contrasting worldviews—Benjamin Franklin, the Enlightenment rationalist, and George Whitefield, the passionate evangelical preacher—they forged a deep friendship through their business partnership printing Whitefield’s sermons and their mutual admiration.
Franklin was in awe of Whitefield’s oratorical abilities, and Whitefield valued Franklin’s practical wisdom.
The two had a decades-long correspondence and collaboration.
When he lived as a diplomat in London in the 1750s and 1760s, Benjamin Franklin formed a warm intellectual friendship with David Hume.
Hume was one of the era’s most influential philosophers.
The two frequently met up in coffeehouses where they exchanged ideas on topics ranging from empiricism, electricity, and government.
Despite their contrasting personalities and diplomatic styles, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin managed to work together to secure French support for American independence.
But their relationship was a mixed bag.
The two friends had very differing approaches to negotiations.
Their relationship is well known via Adams’ later critiques of Franklin’s methods, and Franklin’s dismissal of Adams’ rigidity would stain their friendship when they returned to America.
Franklin and Joseph Priestley forged a deep intellectual friendship across the Atlantic.
It was built on their shared passion for scientific discovery, particularly in electricity and chemistry, with Franklin’s electrical experiments inspiring Priestley’s writings while Priestley’s innovative chemical work equally captivated Franklin.
The two friends exchanged letters rich with philosophical musings and theological discussions, maintaining a close connection even after Franklin’s return to America.
Priestley documented Franklin’s electrical discoveries for European audiences in his influential work “History and Present State of Electricity.”
Benjamin Franklin and Madame Anne-Louise Brillon forged an extraordinary friendship in the elegant salons of pre-revolutionary Paris.
Known for intellectual discourse with musical collaboration.
Their relationship, immortalized through years of correspondence where he called her “good and dear friend” and she playfully dubbed him “Papa.”
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson’s relationship began through their shared work on the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Their bond deepened through mutual intellectual admiration despite their contrasting worldviews:
Their friendship was anchored in respect, with Jefferson later honoring Franklin as “the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived.”
Dr. John Fothergill and Benjamin Franklin forged a deep friendship in 18th-century London because of their shared passions for science, medicine, and public welfare.
Their intellectual partnership flourished.
They liked to write to each other about various medical studies, like understanding illness.
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