[ applause ] okay. American history tv on cspan 3 continues tuesday night. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, a look at mismanagement of the u. S. Nuclear arsenal from 1945 to 1950. After that the evolution of military Weapons Technology from napoleon to the military drones used today. And also a discussion about the 6,000 american soldiers captured during the siege of charleston in the revolutionary war. American history tv is on cspan each night this week, starting at 8 00 eastern. The Democratic National convention from philadelphia starts today. Watch live every minute on cspan. Listen live on the free cspan radio app. Its easy to download from the apple store or google play. Watch live on demand anytime at cspan. Org. On your desktop, phone or tablet, where youll find all of our Convention Coverage and the full convention schedule. Follow us at cspan on twitter and like us on facebook to see video of newsworthy moments. Watch every minute of the 2016 Democratic NationalConvention Starting today on cspan, the cspan radio app, and cspan. Org. And this fall on cspan the president ial debates between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. The first of the three debates is monday september 26th at Hofstra University in hempstead, new york. That debate is live here on cspan along with the other debates on sunday october 9th and wednesday october 19th. Washington journal is live from the Democratic National convention in philadelphia. Coming up tuesday morning, after the first day of the democratic convention, morning call washington correspondent laura olson will preview day two, including Hillary Clintons expected formal nomination by roll call vote. And lead plaintiff in the ohio samesex marriage case oebar ga fel v. Hodges, james obergafel will talk about his role in the historic case and the role of lgbt rights and Marriage Equality in the 2016 political debate. Also, new orleans mayor and u. S. Conference of mayors Vice PresidentMitch Landrieu will join steve benjamin, mayor of columbia, South Carolina and dnc Platform Committee member, to talk about gun violence and Police Community relations. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live from the Democratic National convention beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern tuesday morning. Next on American History tv, author and journalist Walter Isaacson discusses the life and legacy of founding father Benjamin Franklin. Isaacson argues that franklins innovation, networking methods, and passion for science epitomized what he calls Americas National character. The New York Historical society hosted this program. Its a little over an hour. Tonights program, Benjamin Franklin american democracy and innovation, is the 2016 Benjamin Franklin house robert h. Smith lecture in american democracy. Were proud, indeed, to partner with londons Benjamin Franklin house in bringing this lecture to our institution. Benjamin franklin house is the only surviving former residence of Benjamin Franklin, today a Marvelous Museum and educational center, that inspires and motivates young londoners as well as general visitors through the example of our Great American founder and innovator. The museum is a Georgian Terrace house at 26 craven street, very centrally located. So on your next visit to london, i know you will want to stop there. Im very glad, indeed, to recognize and congratulate the museums founding director, dr. Marcia baliciano, who is with us this evening representing Benjamin Franklin house. Thank you, marcia. [ applause ] and i am also very glad to recognize and thank for all of her efforts on behalf of this institution as well as Benjamin Franklin house, Benjamin Franklin house trustee anita wean. Thank you, anita. [ applause ] some of you might be curious about the coincidence of names, this beautiful space, the robert h. Smith auditorium, and this august lecture, the Benjamin Franklin house, robert h. Smith lecture in american democracy. Robert h. Smith was, among much else, the visionary developer of crystal city just outside washington, d. C. , which is today one of the districts most fabulous, young, hip and hopping neighborhoods. But bob smith was above all else a grateful american who did an enormous amount of good for institutions like ours and like the Benjamin Franklin house. It was he who first brought our two institutions together, and i know that he would have been really, really pleased to know that tonights lecture is taking place here in this auditorium, which he very much envisaged as being used precisely as were using it this evening, for a lecture that will surely engage us in the enjoyment of learning about American History. And i can surely say surely because Walter Isaacson, the celebrated journalist and biographer, is our lecturer this evening. Were pleased indeed to welcome mr. Isaacson back to the New York Historical society. Mr. Isaacson is the president and ceo of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute. During his prolific career as a journalist mr. Isaacson has served as chairman and ceo of cnn and as the editor of time magazine. Hes the author of many books, including Benjamin Franklin a life and his most recent published in 2014, the innovators how a group of hackers, geniuses and geeks created the digital revolution. Tonights program will last about an hour, and it will include a questionandanswer session. There will be no formal book signing this evening, but mr. Isaacsons books will be available in our museum store kiosk just outside this auditorium. Before we begin, as always, id like to ask that you please make sure that anything that makes a noise, like a cell phone, is switched off. And now, please do join me in welcoming Walter Isaacson to the stage. [ applause ] thank you very much. And its wonderful to be back, especially on behalf of the Benjamin Franklin house, and to talk about of all the biography subjects ive ever written the one whos my favorite, of course, dr. Benjamin franklin. This all started, and i like seeing marsia and michelle sitting together at least my involvement started when i was researching Benjamin Franklin. I would be over in london quite a bit. And i realized that the only house Still Standing in which Benjamin Franklin lived was a house on craven street, right behind whitehall, near parliament, near trafalgar square. And it wasnt renovated at all. It was pretty much an abandoned place, and there were people trying to make it into a museum for Benjamin Franklin. I happened to know robert h. Smith, who had helped with monticello, mt. Vernon, all the great founders. And i said to him, lets have breakfast, because he had an apartment in the savoy, was it, hotel, which is only maybe what we would call four blocks from Benjamin Franklin house. He had breakfast and he agreed to be one of the major funders. Michelle, his daughter who is sitting there who happens to be on my board of directors at the Aspen Institute. Said never again will i allow you to have breakfast with my father. But we do believe, as anita, who is on the board of the ben franklin house, can attest, that it was a wise investment and dr. Franklin would thank you. Im going to talk tonight about franklin, talk about his relevance today as well as an innovator, but im going to do it, if you dont mind, just as storytelling, just to go through the stories about ben franklin and try to draw the lessons from them. I had thought about making it heres 12 things you need to know from Benjamin Franklin, but when i was growing up, i had a mentor who said that two types of people come out of louisiana, preachers and storytellers. And he said, for gods sake, be a storyteller, the world has too many preachers, and its the best way to get the lessons across anyway. As you probably know, Benjamin Franklin was born in boston. Edit the tenth son of a puritan immigrant. And as the tenth son of a puritan he was going to be his fathers tithe to the lord. His father was going to send him to harvard to study to become a minister. That was a long time ago, back when harvard knew how to train ministers more than hedge fund managers. But Benjamin Franklin was not exactly cut for the cloth. At one point they were salting away the provisions for the winter at his Fathers House and he said to his father, how about if i say grace over them right now, and we can get it done with once and for all for the entire year . So his father realized it would be a waste of money to send him to harvard to be a minister. So he did the next best thing, or perhaps something even better, which is he apprenticed benjamin to his older brother, james, who had a Publishing House and a newspaper. So Benjamin Franklin without a formal education, and i hate to mention this because sometimes i get asked to give graduation speeches and its very difficult because whether its steve jobs or Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin or bill gates or mark zuckerberg, anybody i write about, they all run away or drop out before they graduate. So Benjamin Franklin is apprenticed to his brother, and he teaches himself by pulling down the books from the shelf of his brothers Publishing House and book store in boston. And its addison and steeles essays and the spectator and publications from the great essayists of london. And what franklin does is chops them all up, cuts them up and distributes the paragraphs around and then tries to put them back in a better order so he can teach himself how to write. He said that he was never quite sure that he became a great writer, but in fact what he does is he becomes the best homespun humor writer, i think, in American History. His brother, who i mentioned was an older brother, and being an older brother would not let franklin write for the newspaper. So franklin ends up writing under a pseudonym, Silence Dogood. He puts a pen name on it and slips the essays he does under the door of his brothers print shop. And the brother and his friends. Running the print shop in the new england courier newspaper. I have no idea where theyre coming from. And franklin has put on the persona of a widowed, elderly woman living in the countryside of massachusetts and writing these essays. The triumph of the imagination, a kid who was then 15 years old and never left boston, but writing in this voice. And its a distinctly american voice. She begins and introduces herself in the first of the Silence Dogood columns in the new england current by saying let me introduce myself. Im a woman of Strong National sentiments. I really reject the notion of privilege, and i have a protective feel about all my rights. Thats how you know im an american. And it really is that sort of first authentic frontier voice of poking fun at the pretensions of the elite and the top establishment, poking fun at the mathers, Cotton Mather and Increase Mather and the families that were running puritan boston. And over and over again in the first set of essays, you see her sort of doing this type of humor, saying that she was thinking of sending a nephew to harvard, but it only turns out dunces and blockheads who know how to enter a room genteelly, and she says thats something they can less expensively learn at dancing school, so shes going to send her nephew to dancing school. So, you see this wonderful thing. Of course, eventually, his brother who did go to harvard and was not a dunce or a blockhead, finally figures out that his young ben, his younger brother writing these things, and is not particularly happy, makes him stop. And to cut the story a little bit, Benjamin Franklin actually runs away. He breaks his apprenticeship he had signed to be an apprentice with his brother for seven years and runs away to philadelphia. Now, this is an important thing, because boston was very theocratic, one with very little separation from the puritan churches and the government. But philadelphia was a place where there was a great diversity of people. There were moravians and anglicans and presbyterians and episcopals and jews and slaves an freed slaves, and they all worked together in a place called Market Street. They all came to shop. And it was the first place of brotherly love, as philadelphia means, where you saw a diversity of people trying, people who are all immigrants, including anglicans and episcopalians, but all of them had come for a particular type of freedom, and they had to Work Together in what was the first ethnically diverse society. An ethnic and religious and background diversity truly leads to creativity. It was that sort of bubbling mix there that allows philadelphia to become a place of great commerce but also a place of great middleclass entrepreneurship, startup and innovation. Benjamin franklin eventually decides after being an apprentice to a printer there to start his own print shop. He goes over to england, buys the type and the foundries and stuff. Back then philadelphia had, i think, 11 newspapers, and he starts the 12th. It was really great in the days, in which there was great competing voices. And there were newspapers for the anglicans and newspapers for the penn family and the proprietors and a newspaper for people very loyal to the crown. And ben franklin starts the first really independent newspaper, not affiliated with any faction, but really being willing to poke fun at all factions and to stand up for what he called we the middling people, meaning the middle class people of philadelphia. And he even starts a cloth, what he calls the Leather Apron Club, in which they meet on fridays, and its for people who wear leather aprons. He sometimes called it the junta. It was a gathering. And it was for people who were the shopkeepers and the artisans who got up early, opened up the shop at 8 00, put on their aprons, and knew how to create Small Businesses. His view was that Small Businesses and startups would be the backbone of a new economy. And indeed, one of the things that his group did is Leather Apron Club, was they made a set of rules and maxims for how to be a good startup entrepreneur and innovator. If youve ever read his autobiography, youve seen the rules. He lists them there industry, honesty, frugality, diligence. And hes kind of a geek. He makes a chart and marks off how well he had done each week on conquering or mastering each one of the virtues. Puts a little blot by his name in his commonplace book when he messes up on one of the virtues. And hes often erasing it to start over. He finally transfers the chart to a piece of slate so he can wipe it clean each week, have a clean slate, as the saying goes, which seems very american. The notion every week you start off again. And finally, after a while, hes ended up mastering all 12 of these virtues for a given week. Hes got each one of them right. And he shows it off proudly to the members of the club. And one of them says, you know, franklin, youre forgetting a virtue you might want to try. And franklin says, whats that . And the friend says humility. You might want to try that one for a change. What i love about franklin is he admits, i was never very good at the virtue of humility. I never mastered it. But i was very good, he says, at the pretense of humility. I learned to fake it very well. But heres the great genius of franklin. He says, and i learned that the pretense of humility was just as useful as the reality of humility. It made you listen to the people next to you, it made you hear what they were saying, it made you try to find the common ground, and that was the essence of the middle class democracy we were trying to put together. That notion that appearances helped shape reality, of course, comes from shakespeare. The mask turns into the man. We become the mask we wear. But its sort of important, because nowadays, were probably not quite as concerned about looking right, making good appearances, trying to show that youre doing the right thing. But as fran