Samuel Keimer in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Samuel Keimer

Keimer is Franklin's first real boss who's not a family member. Although Franklin originally goes to Philadelphia in hopes of working for another printer there, Andrew Bradford, he ends up as Keimer's employee when Bradford doesn't need him. At first, things go well: Keimer and Franklin even talk jokingly about the "religious" sect they're going to start, in which men will wear beards and eat a vegetarian diet.

Ultimately, it seems like both of them are using each other. Franklin wants to break out on his own, but after an interlude in England and working for Denham, he finds himself working for Keimer once again. But Keimer's acting less and less like a good boss and, after he publicly humiliates Franklin by yelling at him, Franklin quits. Keimer runs into more and more debt, and eventually moves away to Barbados.