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134 search results for: Benjamin Franklin
Seminars
Belles Lettres at the Library Company
In the early years, the Library Company acquired works of literature through purchases from London booksellers made by agents on our behalf or through gifts. The 1741 catalog, published on our tenth anniversary, listed a set of Montaigne’s Essays (London 1685), which came into the collection as a gift from Benjamin Franklin; James Thomson’s The […]
Treasures from the Library Company of Philadelphia
One of the most popular poets in colonial America, Phillis Wheatley became the first person of African descent to publish in America. The enslaved Wheatley earned international fame for an elegy for George Whitefield, the renowned Methodist minister of the Great Awakening, whom she had seen preach in Boston shortly before his death in 1770. […]
Treasures from the Library Company of Philadelphia
By the time he died in 1751, James Logan—who came to Pennsylvania as William Penn’s secretary in 1699 and went on to occupy many of the highest political and judicial offices of the province—had assembled the best collection of books in colonial America. Logan was a book collector all his life—as well as a linguist […]
Discover the Library Company’s Art & Artifacts Collection
The South East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia is one the Library Company’s treasures; this view of the Delaware Riverfront of Philadelphia is the oldest surviving painting of a North American city. Philadelphia is shown as bustling and mercantile, with a river full of ships. A key at the bottom of the painting numbers […]
Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia
As we enter the final two months of the seemingly endless presidential election season, politics is on nearly everyone’s mind. Political visuals, whether appearing as newspaper cartoons, television commercials, or part of our social media, play a role in shaping the national dialogue about issues facing the electorate. Our 18th-century forbears also recognized the power […]
Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia
In 1731, Philadelphia was North America’s most important city. It was also the canvas for many of the young Benjamin Franklin’s inspirations for voluntary association and civic betterment. Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, Franklin had organized the Junto, a group of like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their […]