American Foundations
Texts That Shaped a Nation
United States Consulate General in Shanghai
Shanghai American Center
Enlightened Ambitions
Franklin, Wheatley, and Occom
Christopher Moses
15:00, 3 April 2026
Samson Occom
by Jonathan Spilsbury, after Mason Chamberlin
National Portrait Gallery, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=176054782
Benjamin Franklin
by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21880454
Phillis Wheatley
by Scipio Moorhead
US Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division, digital ID cph.3a40394, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1629684
1400 2026
Map of the Atlantic Ocean (1613)
Pierre de Vaulx, a cartographer and pilot in the French royal navy
US Library of Congress
https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.wdl/wdl.15482
The Gulf Stream
(1769)
Benjamin Franklin and Timothy Folger
US Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
Ref number: 88696412jpg, Public Domain
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71386624
1400 2026
1517— Protestant Reformation
1492— ??????
1534— Henry VIII, Act of Supremacy
1630— Bay Colony, Winthrop (Boston)
1640-60— ??????
1611— William Shakespeare, The Tempest
1688-89—Glorious Revolution
1707— Act of Union (Great Britain)
1692— Salem Witch Trials
1687— Newton, Philosopiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
1690— ??????, Second Treatise of Government
2024— President Biden, formal apology for Indian boarding school system
1754-63— French and Indian / Seven Years War
1723— Samson Occom born
1833— Great Britain abolishes slavery
1636— Founding of Harvard College
1651— Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
1660— Robert Boyle, New Experiments
1702-1713— Queen Anne’s War / War of Spanish Succession
1706— Benjamin Franklin born
1744-1748— King George’s War
1776— ??????
c. 1753— Phillis Wheatley born
1865— United States abolishes slavery
1979— First World Climate
Conference
1400 2026
1517— Protestant Reformation
1492— Columbus’ first voyage
1534— Henry VIII, Act of Supremacy
1630— Bay Colony, Winthrop (Boston)
1640-60— English Civil War
1611— William Shakespeare, The Tempest
1688-89—Glorious Revolution
1707— Act of Union (Great Britain)
1692— Salem Witch Trials
1687— Newton, Philosopiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
1690— John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
2024— President Biden, formal apology for Indian boarding school system
1754-63— French and Indian / Seven Years War
1723— Samson Occom born, d. 1792
1833— Great Britain abolishes slavery
1636— Founding of Harvard College
1651— Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
1660— Robert Boyle, New Experiments
1702-1713— Queen Anne’s War / War of Spanish Succession
1706— Benjamin Franklin born, d. 1788
1739-1748— War of Jenkins’ Ear / King George’s War
1776— Declaration of Independence
c. 1753— Phillis Wheatley born, d. 1784
1865— United States abolishes slavery
1979— First World Climate Conference
1775/6-83— American Revolutionary War
By Phillis Wheatley - Houghton Library, Harvard University, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36714467
Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,�Taught my benighted soul to understand�That there’s a God, that there's a Saviour too:�Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.�Some view our sable race with scornful eye,�“Their colour is a diabolic dye.”�Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,�May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
—”On being brought from Africa to America” (1773)
https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/occom-circle/occom
“The Slow Traveler”
—Samson Occom (1773)
https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/occom-circle/occom
By David Martin (1767)
By Robert Feke (c. 1746-50)
By C. N. Cochin (1777), engraved by A.H. Richie
(1) Harvard Art Museums, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Feke_-_Benjamin_Franklin.png (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Franklin1877.jpg (3) The White House, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_1767.jpg
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
(First published in French, Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin [1791]; in English, 1793)
In the various Enumerations of the moral Virtues I had met with in my Reading, I found the Catalogue more or less numerous, as different Writers included more or fewer Ideas under the same Name. Temperance, for Example, was by the some confin'd to Eating & Drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other Pleasure, Appetite, Inclination or Passion, bodily or mental, even to our Avarice & Ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of Clearness, to use rather more Names with fewer Ideas annex'd to each, than a few Names with more Ideas; and I included under Thirteen Names of Virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annex'd to each a short Precept, which fully express'd the Extent I gave to its Meaning.
Adapted from https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/franklin-virtue.html (accessed 28 May 2016).
1 . Temperance. Eat not to Dullness Drink not to Elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation.
3. Order. Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no Time. Be always employ'd in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes or Habitation.
11 . Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Adapted from https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/franklin-virtue.html (accessed 28 May 2016).
By Phillis Wheatley - Houghton Library, Harvard University, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36714467
Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,�Taught my benighted soul to understand�That there’s a God, that there's a Saviour too:�Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.�Some view our sable race with scornful eye,�“Their colour is a diabolic dye.”�Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,�May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
—”On being brought from Africa to America” (1773)
Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.03701600
“We expect great things from men who have made such a noble stand against the designs of their fellow-men to enslave them. We cannot but with and hope Sir, that you will have the same grand object, we mean civil and religious liberty, in view in your next session. The divine spirit of freedom, seems to fire every humane breast on this continent…”
—Petition, 1773
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pennsylvania_Abolition_Society_Historical_Marker_at_S_Front_near_Walnut_Sts_Philadelphia_PA_(DSC_4606).jpg
“At some point after 1785, Benjamin Franklin was elected as the organization's president. The society asked him to bring the matter of slavery to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He petitioned the U.S. Congress in 1790 to ban slavery.”
Hartford, Ct. : E.B. & E.C. Kellogg, 245 Main St. ; New York : Geo. Whiting, 87 Fulton St., 1861, Library of Congress, Control Number 2010646811, https://www.loc.gov/item/2010646811/, accessed 28 August 2025
Annihilation To Traitors (1861)
Samson Occom
by Jonathan Spilsbury, after Mason Chamberlin
National Portrait Gallery, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=176054782
Benjamin Franklin
by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21880454
Phillis Wheatley
by Scipio Moorhead
US Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division, digital ID cph.3a40394, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1629684
American Foundations
Texts That Shaped a Nation
United States Consulate General in Shanghai
Shanghai American Center
Enlightened Ambitions
Franklin, Wheatley, and Occom
Christopher Moses
15:00, 3 April 2026