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Benjamin Franklin: Post-Master

Distribution is a popular subject not only amidst small publishers of art books and magazines but also within the field of artistic practice. In these times of printing-on-demand it’s no longer the large publishing houses calling the shots – small independents are gaining clout. Thanks to new technology, the potential to produce and to distribute almost anywhere has become a reality. David Reinfurt explains how writer, publisher and Postmaster Benjamin Franklin was 300 years early in understanding the necessity of maintaining control over what is written, how is it printed and to where it is distributed.January 17, 2006 – As it turns out, today is Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday. Writer, typographer, printer-publisher-politician, inventor, statesman, gentleman scientist, lover, linguist, librarian and the first Postmaster General of the United States, Franklin was the consummate networker – distributing his ideas far and wide through a dizzying range of practices. He established a network of printing franchises by sending former apprentices to set up shop in a new town and collecting his dues; he travelled extensively to London and the courts of France fostering relationships and helping to form a nation; he wrote incisive arguments and entertainments under a constellation of pseudonyms to suit the purpose-at-hand including The Causist, Silence Dogood, Busy-Body, Poor Richard, and J.T.; he advocated a paper currency to facilitate liberal distribution of goods and services; he (reportedly) spread his affections among any number of women in the Colonies and beyond; and he published a weekly newspaper, an occasional magazine and the annual Poor Richard’s Almanack. Along the way, Franklin pursued his polymathic interests while inventing (a partial list): the medical catheter, the Armonica (a musical instrument), the first public lending library, a phonetic alphabet, volunteer fire department, American Philosophical Society, the circulating stove, swim fins, a university, bifocals, the lightning rod, and the United States Postal Service.Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, 1706, the youngest son of seventeen children to Josiah Franklin, a candle-maker and merchant. He studied briefly at the Boston Latin School before being removed for a more practical training. By age 12, he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer and publisher of the first independent Colonial newspaper, the New England Courant.1 Initially, young Benjamin assisted with page composition, typesetting, leading, brushing, burnishing and miscellaneous production tasks. James’ shop was a hub of pamphleteering where pithy and pointed documents were produced to distribute political points-of-view. Further, his newspaper, the New England Courant, provided the most widely-distributed communication platform in Boston. As an increasingly competent writer himself, Franklin wished to add his voice to the public discourse circling around the print-shop. He knew his older brother wouldn’t consent to print his writing, so he tried another tactic. Franklin assumed an alter-ego, Mrs. Silence Dogood, the dignified widow of a country parson. Writing under this pseudonym, he crafted a series of letters, entertaining yet critical of Boston’s Puritan establishment. Given his insider knowledge of the New England Courant’s production process, Franklin carefully slipped the letters under the front door of the shop late at night. The writing was funny and the contents not inconsequential —Mrs. Dogood quickly gained a wide readership. By the time that the eighth Silence Dogood letter was printed, Benjamin had unveiled himself as Mrs. Dogood, much to James’ displeasure. The younger brother commanded too much attention, the relationship fell apart and soon, Benjamin left without completing his apprenticeship. He fled Boston, first for New York and then on to Philadelphia.Benjamin Franklin arrived in Philadelphia in 1723 at the age of 17, already an accomplished writer and print-shop apprentice. He found printing work and lodging with Samuel Keimer, and soon established his own print-shop. By 1728, he had befriended the Mayor, assimilated himself into polite society and was doing modestly well as one of three printers in Philadelphia. As both writer and printer, Franklin enjoyed a privileged position from which to distribute his ideas — from advocating the use of paper currency to detailing the cyclical patterns of weather systems to sage advice dispensed to a young tradesman in 1748: ‘Courteous Reader, Remember that TIME is money.’2Being intimately acquainted with the production process from writing to editing to typesetting to page composition to printing, Franklin knew that it was not only WHAT was said, or WHO said it but, most importantly, TO WHOM it was said. Writing and printing would only lead him so far — the real power of print production, like any mass medium, was in its distribution network. And the primary channel was the colonial postal system which had grown up around several Colonial roads (such as The Boston Post Road or US 1, from New York to Boston via Providence). A rival printer, Andrew Bradford, published the town’s only newspaper, the American Weekly Mercury, and was also the Postmaster of Pennsylvania. As Postmaster, Bradford commanded first access to news from afar and also directed the network for distributing his newspaper. The result was a virtual monopoly on what was news and who read it.

A critical distribution network

Franklin contrived to reverse these circumstances. He first tried to establish a rival newspaper, but was too slow. His intentions leaked and the town’s third printer, his former employer and landlord, Samuel Keimer, slapdashedly assembled and launched his own newspaper, grandly named The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette. Figuring that the small town of Philadelphia couldn’t possibly accommodate three newspapers, Franklin resolved to eliminate one.3 Using his supple pen and exploiting the triangulated relationship between Keimer, Bradford and himself, Franklin wrote a series of letters to the established newspaper, American Weekly Mercury, under the pseudonym Busy-Body. The first letter began by suggesting his intent, beginning: ‘I design this to acquaint you, that I, who have long been one of your Courteous Readers, have lately entertain’d some Thoughts of setting up for an Author my Self; not out of the least Vanity, I assure you, or Desire of showing my Parts, but purely for the Good of my Country. I have often observ’d with Concern, that your Mercury is not always equally entertaining. The Delay of Ships expected in, and want of fresh Advices from Europe, make it frequently very Dull; and I find the Freezing of our River has the same Effect on News as on Trade.’4The Busy-Body letters were published in the Mercury prominently on the front page with a large by-line. Franklin continued to write these engaging letters from his manufactured author, which served both to enliven the established, yet dull, newspaper as well as to spurn the new upstart and its publishing strategies, which at the time, consisted primarily of serializing encyclopaedia entries. Keimer responded to the assaults in an increasingly shrill tone and desperate manner — the ensuing war of words left Keimer and his newspaper in considerable debt. Keimer was briefly imprisoned and then fled to Barbados, selling his newspaper to Franklin as he was leaving town.5 In October 1729, Benjamin Franklin became the proud publisher of The Pennsylvania Gazette. The Pennsylvania Gazette provided Franklin with a platform for his provocative publishing and over the following eight years, he developed a substantial reputation. By 1737, his newspaper had firmly supplanted Bradford’s staid Mercury and Franklin was appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin now commanded the central strategic position that he had angled for: he was a producer with a proud tradesman’s intimate knowledge of printing; he was a writer who knew the power of his pen and authorial position; and now he was Postmaster, directing and redesigning the networks of information distribution. This combination of an on-the-ground knowledge and a from-the-sky view served him extraordinarily well. Franklin soon graduated to Postmaster of Pennsylvania and, in 1753, he was appointed Joint Postmasters General for the Crown. As before, with his network of printers, constellation of pen-names, or business associations, Franklin succeeded in appointing friends and allies in many of the subordinate Postmaster jobs throughout the Colonies, ensuring himself a privileged position at the centre of this emerging critical distribution network.In his first seven years as Postmaster, Franklin radically reorganized the postal service, establishing mile-markers on roads, mapping new and shorter routes (post riders now carried mail at night between Philadelphia and New York cutting delivery time in half), and developing post roads from Maine to Florida, and New York to Canada. For the first time, mail between the Colonies and England operated on a regular schedule with posted times, connecting the Colonies to each other and to mother England while beginning to articulate an as-yet-formed nation. Though all of these improvements, Franklin was able to report an operating budget surplus to the Crown by 1760, the first time that the postal service made economic sense. However, in 1774, for actions sympathetic to the cause of the Colonies, Franklin was relieved of his duties. Shortly thereafter, he was selected as chairman of the Committee of Investigation to establish a postal system at the Continental Congress. On July 26, 1775, Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General of the (brand-new) United States of America.6

Just-In-Time

According to www.USPS.gov, the current United States Postal Service ‘descends in an unbroken line from the system he [Benjamin Franklin] planned and placed into operation.’7 Currently, the USPS is the third largest employer in the country (after the Department of Defense and Walmart.) Operating as an independent branch of the Executive branch of the United States Government, the Post Office enjoys a de-facto monopoly status on delivery of first-class and third-class letters, where long-distance mail delivery rates are essentially subsidized by delivery of short-distance letters. Exceptions to this monopoly are given for delivery of parcels and extremely urgent letters, giving rise to a number of fierce competitors including (of course) FedEx, UPS, and DHL. The United States Postal Service remains (for the near future, anyway) a almost-anachronism — thanks to increasing reliance on electronic communications it has become a network right at the edge of obsolescence, one used everyday and yet resembling a curious relic. And because of this status as a recent remnant, it offers a perfect model for considering changing paradigms and patterns of distribution today. The U.S. Postal Service as a distribution network is open, democratic, public, available and affordable. It facilitates one-to-one, asynchronous communication over great distance, is always on, efficient, economic, and reliable (well…). But then, this description corresponds to many other distribution networks today. And when the Postal System disappears, what replaces it? Certainly, the synergized Mass Media Mogul model of distribution networks like 20th Century Fox or NBC are not good enough.Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri concisely describe a contemporary distribution pattern in the course of their political treatise/self-help book Empire. Hardt and Negri identify a contemporary condition where the collapse of design, production and distribution occur at one place and in real-time. Suddenly, writers can print their own texts, designers can produce on-the-fly, and printers can distribute instantly. What is needed, when it is needed, where it is needed. This kind of generalist approach and a Just-In-Time mode of production pries open a space of resistance for small actors in a massive system. Ideas can be designed, produced, multiplied and distributed on-demand. Benjamin Franklin might be excited: A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.8So Mr. Franklin was here before, operating as if he was anticipating this moment 300 years after his birthday. Completely engaged and instrumental in the mass media of his day, he managed to proposed and implement an alternate model of distribution. Rather than concentrating resources and commanding an assembly line of content, design, production and distribution, Franklin retained a fundamental pride in the skills he’d first learned as a printer’s apprentice. He countered the Media Mogul with the Networked Tradesman — an individual, highly skilled and committed, with an extended network of distributed preoccupations, assistants, pen-names, jobs, friends (politicians and royalty), inventions and hobbies. He laid his model bare in his 9th Poor Richard’s Almanack of 1742, stating: ‘He that hath a Trade, hath an Estate.’9 Working as an individual within a massive network, Franklin realized an exquisite understanding of the power of distribution and remains resonant 300 years later as a result (happy birthday, Benjamin). There is no need to look farther than his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette — centred on the bottom margin, Franklin proudly added a by-line where design, writing, production, and distribution collapse in one space and five words: ‘Printed by B. Franklin, Post-Master.’101. Various authors, Benjamin Franklin on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin.2. Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One, The New-Printing-Office, Philadelphia, 1748. See also: http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/advice.htm.3. Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1999, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/.4. Benjamin Franklin, The Busy-Body, No. 1, The American Weekly Mercury, February 4, 1728. See http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/bb1.htm5. For a more complete detail of this incident see: Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2003. 6. History of the United States Postal Service 1775-1993, http://www.usps.com/history/history.7. ibid.8. Benjamin Franklin, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, Washington, 1775.9. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 9th edition, Philadelphia, 1742.

David Reinfurt

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