What was Ben Franklin's impact on America?

Question: What was Ben Franklin's impact on America!?
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In 'made in America' Bill Bryson writes:

'One of seventeen children of a Boston soap and candle maker, he had left home as a boy after receiving barely two years of schooling, and established himself as a printer in Philadelphia!. by dint of hard work and steady application he had made himself into one of the most respected thinkers and wealthiest businessmen in the colonies!. His experiments with electricity, unfairly diminished in the popular mind to inventing the lightning rod and nearly killing himself by flying a kite in a thunderstorm, were among the most exciting scientific achievements of the eighteenth century and made him one of the celebrated scientists of the day!. The terms he created in the course of his experiments - battery, armature, positive, negative, and condenser, among others - show that he was a good deal more than a mildly quizzical fellow who just wanted to see wht would happen if he nudged a kite into some storm clouds!.

Franklin's life was one of relentless industry!. He invented countless useful objects, helped to found America's first volunteer fire department, its first fire insurance company, one of Philadelphia's first libraries,and the respected if somewhat overnamed American Philosophical society for the Promotion of useful Knowledge to be Held at Philadelphia!. he created an eternal literary character, the Richard of Poor richard's almanack, filled the worl with maxims and bon mots, corresponded endlessly with the leading minds of Europe and America, wrote essays on everything from how to select a mistress (take an older woman) to how to avoid flatulence (drink perfume), and in 1737 drew up the first list of American slang terms for drunkenness (he came up with 2280!. He represented America overseas with intellignece and skill and, of course, was one of the shapers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution!. He dabbled in property speculation and ran a printing business with holdings as far afield as Jamaica and Antigua!. He became the largest dealer in paper in the colonies, and made Poor Richard's Almanack such an indispensable part of almost every American household that it was for twenty-five years the country's second best-selling publication (the bible was first)!. Such was his commercial acumen that he was able to retire from business in 1748 aged just forty-two and devote himself to gentlemanly pursuits like politics, science, and writing!.'Www@QuestionHome@Com

ALOT I think he was a great America!. look him up on Google or YahooWww@QuestionHome@Com

to many to list google search himWww@QuestionHome@Com