The Philadelphia Museum of Art houses this famous portrait of Franklin conducting his kite experiment. It was created in 1816 by American artist Benjamin West. Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art website.

In ancient times, philosophers and alchemists pondered the nature of lightning and electromagnetic fields associated with lode stones. The Greeks observed amber’s mysterious ability to attract dust and small particles. The Greek word for amber is elektron.

Centuries later, William Gilbert, a physician at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, coined the word electricity to describe the force he explored in his book De Magnete or “On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies and That Great Magnet the Earth.”

It could be said that Gilbert’s book, published in 1600, ushered in a new age of scientific inquiry aimed at understanding these mysterious forces of nature. Among those caught up in this pursuit was a man who became known as America’s first electrician.

Born in 1706, Benjamin Franklin retired at 42 from a prosperous career as a printer to devote his life to the common good. He published his theory that lightning was electricity, which touched off experiments by others in England.

One scientist was electrocuted. Others did not succeed. But Franklin’s kite experiment in 1752 correctly identified lightning as electricity and successfully stored it in Leyden Jars, a forerunner of battery storage and capacitors.

Franklin’s other experiments affirmed the rudimentary concepts of positive and negative charge, conduction through certain materials and not others, and the value of grounding.

Ben Franklin wrote and published Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Image from the National Archives.

Back then, as now, lightning was a destructive force. Franklin’s famously unpatented lightning rod served as a grounding device to protect homes and buildings from fires and damage caused by lightning strikes. It also sparked development of grounding techniques and surge protection in use today.

Recognized throughout the world as among the scientific intelligentsia of his time, Franklin received the prestigious Copley Medal of British Royal Society.

He would continue serving others as a member of the Continental Congress, as a diplomat to France during the Revolutionary War, and as the oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He died in 1790 at the age of 84.

At the convention, Franklin and others hammered out the U.S. Constitution in a Philadelphia building that later became known as Independence Hall. Back then, the Pennsylvania State House was among the first buildings protected by one of Franklin’s lightning rods. It also housed the Liberty Bell.

“He snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants.” So said scientist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot of Franklin, acknowledging Franklin’s famous invention and his encouragement of revolution against King George III of England.

The spirit of democracy and innovation never left the leather-aproned tradesman, who had served as a printer’s apprenticeship and who knew the value of cooperation and brotherly love for creating goodwill and wealth.

Besides the lightning rod, Franklin invented bifocals, the catheter, the Franklin stove, swim flippers and a water-activated musical instrument called the Armonica. He also mapped the Gulf Stream.

Acknowledging Franklin as America’s first scientist, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia houses a collection of Franklin’s scientific artifacts, including one of his lightning rods. The Institute is one of the oldest, most popular and most respected science education centers in the United States.

The Franklin Institute Philadelphia houses Benjamin Franklin’s famous lightning rod among other scientific artifacts. Source: The Franklin Institute

Because Philadelphia is where Franklin and others penned our nation’s constitution, several local public buildings and parks bear Franklin’s likeness in statuary. A National Parks Museum there also explores his legacy and bears his name.