- This Fourth of July, the US celebrates the 242nd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Most Americans know all about the big-name Founding Fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.
- Business Insider dug deeper into the backgrounds of the rest of the signers.
The Fourth of July means summer fun, fireworks, and lots of red, white, and blue decorations, for most of us.
It also marks the day that the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution to declare independence from Britain 242 years ago.
Historians believe that most of the founders didn't actually sign the document until about a month later. But July 4 was the date on the copies that got circulated around the colonies, so that's what the US went with.
Many Americans learn about famous founders like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson in school.
But many of the guys who showed up in sweltering Philadelphia during the summer of 1776 were relatively obscure. And a good number of Founding Fathers, like Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, James Madison, and John Jay, didn't even sign the Declaration.
So let's take a look at the lives and careers of some of these lesser known founders. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the signers were prominent members of their communities. They worked as lawyers, physicians, merchants, and planters before being elected to the Continental Congress. A vast majority of them also owned slaves.
Here's a breakdown of the career paths of all 56 signers and what brought them to Philadelphia in the sweltering summer of 1776:
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John Hancock was a wealthy smuggler
The man with the most famous signature in American history led an allegedly illicit career before he entered the political realm.
On the surface, the president of the Second Continental Congress was a prominent New England merchant and a major financial backer of the revolutionary cause in Boston.
However, Hancock's mercantile fortune was allegedly bolstered through the illegal smuggling of products like Dutch tea, glass, lead, paper, and French molasses, according to the Boston Tea Party Historical Society.
He was charged with smuggling, but was acquitted thanks to his savvy lawyer — John Adams.
Samuel Adams was an incompetent tax collector
The founding father — and inspiration behind the modern day beer company— had a rocky start to his career after graduating from Harvard in 1740.
His first few business ventures ended poorly, and he dropped out of studying law. Even worse, he was an incompetent tax collector, neglecting "to collect the public levies and to keep proper accounts,"according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
He later achieved great influence in local politics, founding the Sons of Liberty, Boston's revolutionary group. This activity allowed Adams to become a driving force in the growing movement against Britain's series of new taxes, which ultimately snowballed into the Revolution.
John Adams was an unfulfilled teacher before becoming a lawyer
John Adams established a reputation as a talented lawyer that would launch him on the path to the presidency. However, his first job mostly involved keeping order in the classroom.
After graduating Harvard, Adams took his first job as as a schoolmaster in Worcester, Massachusetts, according to the University of Groningen's biography of the second US president.
The career was not fulfilling for Adams and he was often filled with self doubt, as evidenced by the personal entries in his famous journal, which the Massachusetts Historical Society has posted online. To keep up with his own reading and writing, Adams would sometimes ask the smartest student to lead class.
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