Benjamin Franklin as a young man, seated at desk in printing shop

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Here Franklin is shown as a young man seated at a desk in a printing shop, the trade that launched his career. Before he became known as a statesman and scientist, he worked as a printer in Philadelphia, where he published the *Pennsylvania Gazette* and *Poor Richard's Almanack*. This wood engraving appears as an illustration on page 41 of a book titled *Views from Nature*, and its date of about 1863 is only an estimate in the record. Mid-century illustrators often used scenes like this one to present Franklin as a model of self-made industry.

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