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"Founding Father and all-around Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin considered and wrote about many topics. In this essay from 1786 on restful sleep, Franklin advises exercise before meals, moderate eating (""...full feeding, occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible; we fall from precipices, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress""), and fresh air in the sleep chamber, to avoid perspiring in a hot bed. Most importantly, he says, one must be sure to preserve a Good Conscience.This short work is part of Applewood's ""American Roots"" series--tactile mementos of American passions by some of America's most famous writers."

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9781429096041

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"Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of America's most influential Founding Fathers. He was an author, printer, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, statesman, and diplomat. Franklin invented the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and bifocals. He served as President of Pennsylvania (which would be Governor today), United States Minister to France, United States Minister to Sweden, and United States Postmaster General. At 70, he was the oldest signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a publisher; most famously of Poor Richard's Almanack, which was published from 1732 to 1757. He charted the Gulf Stream in 1770, developed meteorological theories, and, in a letter dated 1772, laid out the earliest known description of a Pro & Con list. Franklin played the violin, harp, and guitar, and was the first chess player known by name in the American colonies. He created one of the first volunteer firefighting companies in America, was instumental in the founding of the University of Pennsylvania, and founded the American Philosophical Society. Franklin biographer Walter Isaacson calls him ""the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."""

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