Benjamin
Franklin

One of America’s best-known Founding Fathers was also one of its most brilliant inventors. Ben Franklin invented bifocals and the lightning rod, but long before those, he created the Fantastic Franklin Swim Fins. The fins never did catch on, but they proved that, even as a kid, Franklin knew that the best way to solve an old problem was to come up with a new solution.

Ben Franklin loved the water. From the window of his house in Boston, Massachusetts, he could gaze upon the thousands of tall-masted ships passing through the harbor, dreaming of one day working as a hired sailor.

But Ben’s father, Josiah Franklin, had other ideas. He wanted Ben to be a minister. Not only that, but the Franklins had already lost two sons to water: Josiah Junior had been lost at sea, and Ebenezer drowned in a tub.

Josiah, a chandler, had plenty of work to keep Ben from daydreaming about his sailing future. When he wasn’t in school, Ben had to help his father make soap and candles. His job was to skim the scum off the steaming vats of animal fat. It was filthy, smelly work that made Ben’s clothes stink.

But Ben was inventive, and he found small ways to rebel against his father’s wishes. One day, he convinced some friends to build a makeshift wharf using stones they’d pilfered from a nearby construction site. The next morning, the workmen arrived and realized their stones had been taken. Ben and his friends were later punished for stealing.

If he couldn’t sail the sea, Ben decided that at least he could learn to swim. He discovered a book called The Art of Swimming. It contained instructions for various techniques, along with arguments about the importance of swimming. “A good swimmer may not only preserve his own life, but several others also,” the text stated. The author went on to list situations when being a good swimmer might come in handy.

• When being pursued by an enemy and meeting a river in one’s way

• If an open vessel on the sea in a storm is sinking, or has lost its anchors and cables

• In case of a shipwreck

Ben studied the book, practicing all the exercises in the Charles River. He quickly became an expert swimmer and began teaching his friends his finest moves.

Even though he mastered all the basic strokes, Ben was still dissatisfied. He wanted to swim faster. To do so, he reasoned that he would need to re-create the paddling power of creatures like penguins, seals, sea lions, turtles, and sea otters. But how?

Using found materials, Ben constructed a pair of artificial fins. Shaped like a painter’s palette, they had holes for his thumbs to keep them attached. When his prototype was completed, Ben tested them out. By pushing the edge of the fins forward, then pulling the flat surface behind him, he swam much faster.

Just as any scientist would do, Ben reviewed his experiment to figure out what worked and what needed to be improved. He declared the great swim-fin trial a success, but with some reservations.

For one thing, paddling this way quickly tired out his wrists. So Ben figured out a less strenuous way to move through the water. The next time he went for a swim, he brought along a paper kite. He tied its string to a stake, allowing the kite to float high in the sky. Then he lay on his back and allowed the kite to draw him downstream.

To slow down, Ben simply sat up and adjusted the height of the kite. When he reached the other side, his clothes were waiting for him. He’d had the foresight to hire another boy to carry them over there for him.

Ben’s feats of aquatic prowess extended beyond his homeland. As a young man, he spent two years working as a printer in London. One day, some friends challenged him to swim a stretch of the Thames River, from Chelsea to Blackfriars. Ben immediately took off his clothes, jumped into the water, and swam three and a half miles, performing tricks along the way, to the amazement of onlookers.

Ben returned to the American colonies in 1726, at the age of 20, and settled in Philadelphia. In his new city, he proposed that all schools in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have swimming programs. Later, after he had earned renown for his electrical experiments and other achievements, Ben wrote a letter to a friend extolling the virtues of swimming.

“Learn fairly to swim,” he advised, “as I wish all men were taught to do in their youth; they would, on many occurrences, be the safer for having that skill, to say nothing of the enjoyment in so delightful and wholesome an exercise.”

For his efforts to promote swimming and water safety, Benjamin Franklin was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968. These are just two of the fourteen such institutions that have honored this accomplished statesman, scientist, inventor, and icon.