The Society for Useful Knowledge by Jonathan Lyons Page A

and John Jay, and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Paris that ends the War for Independence and recognizes American sovereignty.
1787
Franklin and colleagues form the Society for Political Inquiries. The circle provides a forum for Tench Coxe and his vision of an industrialized and technologically advanced America.
1787
Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts is formed. It includes prominent members of the Society for Political Inquiries.
1788
Mechanics’ associations take the lead in national celebrations of the new federal Constitution and demand government support for manufacturers.
1790
Franklin dies at the age of eighty-four, in Philadelphia. His funeral draws a crowd estimated at two thirds of the city’s total population.
1791
Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, submits his Report on Manufactures to the Congress. The plan relies heavily on the work of Coxe, now Hamilton’s deputy.
1791
The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (SUM) is incorporated in the state of New Jersey, leading to the foundation of the industrial city of Paterson.
1796
SUM ends manufacturing efforts and concentrates on business development and the sale of power to independent entrepreneurs. It survives until 1945, when it is absorbed into the city of Paterson.
1796
David Rittenhouse, self-taught instrument maker and astronomer, dies.
1796
Washington delivers his Farewell Address, warning of the dangers of political factionalism and extolling the diffusion of useful knowledge in a democracy.

a To avoid confusion, I have capitalized Leather Aprons when referring to specific members of Franklin’s club by the same name and used the lower case when referring more generally to the artisans, craftsmen, and mechanics who made up an incipient middle class in early America.
    b “The first sensible analysis of exchange value as labor-time, made so clear as to seem almost commonplace, is to be found in the work of a man of the New World,” wrote Marx. “That man is Benjamin Franklin, who formulated the fundamental law of modern political economy … when a mere youth.” Karl Marx,
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
[1859], translated by N. I. Stone (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1904), 62. It seems likely, however, that Franklin developed his thinking on the subject from the earlier work of the Puritan reformer William Petty. See I. Bernard Cohen,
Science and the Founding Fathers
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 151.

a The title is a deliberate refernece to Aristotle’s text on logic, cherished for centuries and known as the
Organon
.

Epilogue: Manufacturing America
    Say it! No ideas but in things—
nothing but the blank faces of the houses
and cylindrical trees
bent, forked by preconception and accident
split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained
secret—into the body of the light—
These are the ideas, savage and tender
somewhat of the music, et cetera
of Paterson, that great philosopher—
     —William Carlos Williams,
Paterson
(1927)
    Benjamin Franklin died quietly in his bed on April 17, 1790, at the age of eighty-four. His public funeral four days later was one of the most extraordinary processions of humanity in American history, with a crowd of mourners, marchers, and onlookers estimated at roughly twenty thousand—or two thirds of Philadelphia’s total population. A phalanx of local printers, practitioners of Franklin’s beloved craft, walked behind the coffin to the Christ Church cemetery, followed by members of the American Philosophical Society, physicians from the medical college, the clergy, and delegates from the various artisans’ associations. The House of Representatives and its French counterpart, the National Assembly, each observed one month of official mourning.
    Provost William Smith, Franklin’s one-time nemesis in educational and political affairs, delivered a gracious