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Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Graphic Arts Department, Imperfect History: Curating the Graphic Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library is a candid exploration of the history of the social dynamics and cultural biases affecting the construction of an American popular graphic arts collection developed within one of […]
In a life spanning from 1706 to 1790, Benjamin Franklin’s collected papers and correspondence present a panoramic view of the eighteenth century.
When Franklin died in 1790, he was world-famous as a scientist and a diplomat, but he named himself in his will as simply “Benjamin Franklin, Printer.” His Autobiography is above all concerned with his early life as a printer, first as an apprentice in Boston, then as a journeyman in Philadelphia and London, and finally […]
The reconstruction of Benjamin Franklin’s private library obsessed our former Librarian Edwin Wolf 2nd for 44 years. That obsession took hold of him at the estate sale of Franklin Bache (a Franklin descendant) at Freeman’s in 1947. Bache had put homemade cloth wrappers, on which he had typed LIBRARY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, around many of […]
Last March the Library Company’s Program in Early American Economy and Society co-sponsored, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a talk by University of Delaware economics professor Farley Grubb on “Benjamin Franklin and the Birth of a Paper Money Economy.” That engaging talk has now been published by the Philadelphia Fed as a handsomely […]
Having acquired French artist Jean Baptiste Weyler’s gorgeous portrait miniature of Benjamin Franklin in 2013, the Library Company needed to find a fitting way to display it. That challenge inspired us to consider putting more of our precious Franklin art and artifacts on permanent display. It turned out to be an easy step from envisioning […]
In October, Library Company Trustee Davida Deutsch saw a Franklin miniature by French artist Jean Baptiste Weyler (1747-1791) for sale at the Phillip Mould Gallery in London. One look and she knew we had to acquire it for the Library Company. Painted by Weyler in a series of miniatures on enamel he described as […]