Long Table 165. Benjamin Franklin’s Money: A Financial Life of the First American
Channel: American Numismatic Society
Date: 18/12/2023

Among the founders of the United States, Benjamin Franklin can hardly be mentioned without conjuring some idea of American money. Franklin was at the technological forefront of the novel paper money, devising innovative anti-counterfeiting measures and lobbying  governments to expand the paper currency supply. As a printer, he literally made money for the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and by the time he retired at age forty, he was one of the wealthiest men  in colonial America. Florida State University Professor Edward Gray will tell Franklin’s rags-to-riches tale of a near-penniless indentured servant who rose to become America’s first great media mogul, and his relentless work to shift to a system of paper money.