1750: Benjamin Franklin’s first paper mill was fuelled by hemp

1750: Benjamin Franklin’s first paper mill was fuelled by hemp.

Despite his later fame as a scientist and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin thought of himself first and foremost as a printer. He was without a doubt one of the most successful printers of his time in America.

His Pennsylvania Gazette was the most widely read newspaper in the colonies. But Franklin’s success didn’t derive from good content alone. From the 1750s, he and his wife collected flax and hemp rags, invested in setting up paper mills, fuelled by hemp, and eventually ran a thriving wholesale paper business.

Apart from Franklin’s Hemp Mill, He would play a central role in the great crises that led to the Declaration of Independence. In 1765 the Stamp Act placed a tax on all business and law papers and printed materials in the American colonies.

Many colonists opposed this taxation without representation. In a dramatic appearance before Parliament in 1766, Franklin outlined American insistence on self-government. Nevertheless, when the tax was removed Franklin again expressed his faith in America’s prospects within the British empire.

Photo: Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis, 1778.

Research and text © Hempshopper Amsterdam.