Why Benjamin Franklin Printed the Sermons of a Man He Didn’t Believe
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, during the 1730s and 1740s, George Whitefield traveled through colonial America preaching revival sermons that drew enormous crowds. His voice became one of the defining forces of the First Great Awakening.
Among those who followed Whitefield’s rise was Benjamin Franklin. Working as a printer in Philadelphia, Franklin published many of Whitefield’s sermons and helped circulate them widely throughout colonial America. Although Franklin approached religion with skepticism and did not share Whitefield’s theology, the two men developed a lasting friendship built on mutual respect.
Randy Peterson, author of The Printer and the Preacher, shares the story of Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield and explains how their partnership connected the revival culture of the Great Awakening with the expanding world of the colonial printing press.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, |
| 0:17.6 | the show where America is the star and the American people coming to you from the |
| 0:22.3 | city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. They were the most famous men in America. |
| 0:28.9 | They came from separate countries, followed different philosophies, and led dissimilar lives. |
| 0:35.8 | But they were fast friends. |
| 0:43.0 | No two people did more to shape America in the mid-1700s. |
| 0:45.8 | Here to tell the story is Randy Peterson, |
| 0:49.7 | author of The Printer and the Preacher, Ben Franklin, |
| 0:51.3 | George Whitfield, |
| 0:55.0 | and the surprising friendship that invented America. |
| 0:56.5 | Let's take a listen. |
| 1:07.6 | Who would you say were the most famous people in America in the 1740s and 1750s? |
| 1:15.4 | This is a few decades before the Revolutionary War, so think back in your history mind to who was famous at that point. |
| 1:21.6 | You might say George Washington, but he really wasn't around yet. He wasn't in the public consciousness yet. |
| 1:30.9 | You might say Benjamin Franklin, and you would be kind of right about that. but there was somebody else that seemed to be even more of a sensation in that era in America it was the British preacher George Whitfield |
| 1:39.6 | George Whitfield was born in 1714 in England. His widowed mother ran an inn. George was a very smart kid. They thought he might have a future in the ministry, perhaps, which would be a very respectable profession. He wouldn't have to apprentice in a trade or something. |
| 2:02.0 | So they wanted to send him to school. |
| 2:03.8 | So they sent him to what they called a grammar school. |
| 2:07.5 | It was preparatory for college eventually. |
| 2:11.0 | George did well there. |
... |
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