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Benjamin Franklin Peale (born Aldrovand Peale; October 15, 1795 – May 5, 1870), usually Franklin Peale, was an employee and officer of the Philadelphia Mint from 1833 to 1854. Although Peale introduced many innovations to the Mint of the United States, he was eventually dismissed amid allegations he had used his position for personal gain. Peale was the son of painter Charles Willson Peale, and was born in the museum of curiosities that his father ran in Philadelphia. For the most part, Franklin Peale's education was informal, though he took some classes at the University of Pennsylvania. He became adept in machine making. In 1820, he became an assistant to his father at the museum, and managed it after Charles Peale's death in 1827. In 1833, Peale was hired by the Mint, and was sent for two years to Europe to study and report back on coining techniques. He returned with plans for improvement, and designed the first steam-powered coinage press in the United States, installed in 1836. Peale was made Melter and Refiner of the Philadelphia Mint that year, and Chief Coiner three years later upon the retirement of the incumbent, Adam Eckfeldt, who continued in his work without pay. Eckfeldt's labor allowed Peale to run a medal business using Mint property. This sideline eventually caused Peale's downfall: conflicts with Engraver James B. Longacre and Melter and Refiner Richard Sears McCulloh led to Peale being accused of misconduct, and he was dismissed by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. In retirement, Peale continued his involvement in and leadership of many civic organizations; he died in 1870. Numismatic author Q. David Bowers suggests that the facts of Peale's career allow writers to draw very different conclusions about him. == Early life and career == Benjamin Franklin Peale was born October 15, 1795, to painter Charles Willson Peale and his second wife, the former Elizabeth de Peyster. As well as pursuing his art, Charles Peale ran a museum of curiosities housed in Philosophical Hall in Philadelphia, home of the American Philosophical Society. The boy was born in the family quarters in the museum. He was given the name Aldrovand, after the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. Charles Peale recorded family births on the flyleaf of a copy of Matthew Pilkington's ''Dictionary of Painters'', rather than in a Bible, and after recording "Aldrovand" added the notation, "if he likes that name when he comes of age". The father was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and in February 1796 brought his young son to a meeting, and asked the members to select another name for the child. They decided on Benjamin Franklin Peale, naming the boy after the Society's founder, Benjamin Franklin. Society legend holds that the boy was given the name while placed in the chair of the president of the Society, which had been donated by Franklin. Franklin Peale was one of sixteen children his father would have by his three wives. Elizabeth Peale died when Franklin was eight years old, but his father soon remarried, and the child was thereafter cared for by his stepmother. He was given little classroom education, though he did spend some time at a local school in nearby Bucks County, as well as at Germantown Academy and the University of Pennsylvania. For the most part, his education was informal, as was usual in the Peale family, with the student given the means to study what interested him, or what he appeared to be good at. In Franklin Peale's case, he made toys as a boy, and surveyed his father's farm near Germantown. Although he lacked the artistic talent of some of his brothers, such as Titian Peale, he proved mechanically inclined. At age 17, Peale began to work for the Delaware cotton factory of William Young, on the Brandywine River, learning the making of machines. He was an apt student, becoming adept as a turner, founder, and draftsman. He was tolerated in his desire for a mechanical career by his father, who considered it a foolish whim. Within a year, one of the Hodgson brothers, who ran a nearby machine shop, described Peale as highly capable with tools. At age 19 Peale returned to Germantown, where, having designed and supervised the installation of the machinery for a cotton factory there, he was put in charge, and continued to manage the factory for several years. He then moved to nearby Philadelphia, and worked for the firm of John & Coleman Sellers,〔Coleman Sellers was married to Peale's half-sister Sophonisba.〕 which made machinery for card sticking. On April 24, 1815, Peale, still a minor at age 19, married Eliza Greatrake without his father's consent. Almost immediately, it became evident she had mental problems. Although Eliza bore Peale a child within the first year of the marriage (a daughter, Anna), she thereafter left him, returning to live with her mother, who had her committed to Pennsylvania Hospital as a "lunatic". The Peale family began a lengthy effort to show that Eliza Peale was mad when she married Franklin, a ground for annulment. With aid from the testimony of Captain Allen McLane, they were successful, and the annulment was granted on March 22, 1820. Franklin Peale was required to post assets as security for the support of his former wife; his sister Sophy lent him some of her stock in the museum for that purpose. In 1820, Peale left factory management to assist his aging father in running the museum, and remained there for over a decade. When Charles Willson Peale died in 1827, Franklin became the manager of the museum, and like his siblings, inherited stock in it. He not only maintained the exhibits, but added to them, contributing a "curious speaking toy" as well as the model for an early locomotive, which was used to draw two small cars in the museum, with seating for four people. At the time, the museum was located in the Old State House (today, Independence Hall), and Peale worked out a system for using the State House bell to inform fire companies of the location of a blaze. Peale was one of the founders of The Franklin Institute in 1824, one of several mechanics' institutes that came into being in the early 1820s to provide working men with technical education. It quickly became important and influential, organizing an exhibition of American manufactured goods that October, one of at least 26 such shows that it put on in the first 34 years of its existence. Peale taught natural history, mechanics (illustrating his lectures with models and drawings), and chemistry, livening the talks with experiments. He was for many years actively involved with The Franklin Institute, writing articles for its ''Journal'' and serving on key committees. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Franklin Peale」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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