Academy Travel Lecture Program

Benjamin Franklin remains one of history's most restless and inventive minds. 

Born into modest circumstances and largely self-educated, he rose to receive honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and St Andrews—as well as the eighteenth-century equivalent of a Nobel Prize for Physics. That trajectory alone speaks to the extraordinary range of a man who refused to be confined by convention or circumstance.

In this lecture, Professor Richard Bell explores Franklin's remarkable career as scientist, inventor, statesman, and philosopher. Franklin's ideas sought to make life simpler, cheaper, and easier—not just for himself, but for everyone. Those ideas stretched far beyond natural science and engineering to encompass public works, civic reform, political innovation, and entrepreneurial ambition, leaving an imprint on the modern world that endures to this day.