The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin and the Junto, was America’s first successful subscription library. Created when books were scarce and expensive, it allowed members to pool their resources to build a shared collection for learning and debate. The library later served the Continental Congress and the federal government, and today remains an independent research library, with more than half a million rare books, prints, and manuscripts documenting early American history.

Engraving from the City of Philadelphia

1st subscription library in the US

The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1740 and now offers a wide range of academic programs across its 12 schools, including the School of Arts and Sciences, the Wharton School of Business, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.The university is known for its strong research programs and has produced many notable alumni, including 14 heads of state, 25 billionaires, and 3 United States Supreme Court justices. The university has also been associated with many important discoveries and inventions, including the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus and the development of the first general-purpose electronic computer.

The original building is on the left, and the dormitory (or New Building) on the right. This is the only known contemporary view to exist.

Reproduction of an original pencil sketch

Procession entering the New Building, home of the College, to hear first Professor of Law James Wilson

Where College’s first Provost William Smith (1755-1779) taught his classes February to April, 1758 Professor of ethics 1754-1791 Secretary of board of trustees 1764-1790 President of board of trustees 1790-1791

Photo print of original engraving “Library and Surgeons Hall in Fifth Street Philadelphia”, 1799

Derived from a detail of print “Library and Surgeons Hall in Fifth Street Philadelphia”

After the return of the Fourth and Arch Street campus to the trustees of the College of Philadelphia, the University of the State of Pennsylvania leased the Hall of the American Philosophical Society. After the 1791 union of these two institutions as the University of Pennsylvania, this building was no longer needed.

Looking east from 10th and Market Streets, before 1806-1807

Drawing by Armstrong, engraved by Kneass, Young and Company

with Medical Department wing (at left of view).

After the 1817 addition of the cupola to the Medical Department wing

The small residences at rear of church may have been used as anatomical laboratories

with St. Stephen’s Church in the background

in preparation for the University’s move to West Philadelphia &nbsp;

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country.1Many of the first Settlers of these Provinces, were Men who had received a good Education in Europe, and to their Wisdom and good Management we owe much of our present Prosperity. But their Hands were full, and they could not do all Things. The present Race are not thought to be generally of equal Ability: For though the American Youth are allow’d not to want Capacity; yet the best Capacities require Cultivation, it being truly with them, as with the best Ground, which unless well tilled and sowed with profitable Seed, produces only ranker Weeds.That we may obtain the Advantages arising from an Increase of Knowledge, and prevent as much as may be the mischievous Consequences that would attend a general Ignorance among us, the following Hints are offered towards forming a Plan for the Education of the Youth of Pennsylvania, viz.

Original Location

President’s House (1790-1829)

University of Pennsylvania Campus

University of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Hospital, founded in 1751 by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, is the nation’s first chartered public hospital and one of the most important medical institutions of the colonial and early national periods. Established to provide care for the “sick‑poor and insane,” the hospital introduced a new model of organized, publicly supported healthcare in the American colonies. Its founders combined philanthropic subscriptions, legislative support, and civic leadership to create a facility that quickly became a center for medical training, clinical innovation, and public service.The hospital’s historic complex on Pine Street includes the original Pine Building, begun in 1755, which features one of the earliest surgical amphitheaters in the United States and a renowned medical library. Generations of physicians trained here, including many who shaped early American medical education. The institution also played a pioneering role in mental health treatment, maternity care, and clinical instruction.Although Pennsylvania Hospital remains an active medical facility operated by Penn Medicine, its historic buildings and collections preserve more than 250 years of medical history. The site stands as a testament to Philadelphia’s leadership in early American science, public health, and civic philanthropy.

Pennsylvania Hospital

The Pine Building at Pennsylvania Hospital is the institution’s original 1756 structure, a Colonial‑era landmark that housed the nation’s first surgical amphitheater, first hospital apothecary, and first medical library. It served as the hospital’s early wards and training spaces.Founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond, it was the first institution in the colonies formally authorized to care for the “sick‑poor and insane.” The Pine Building is the hospital’s original structure and one of the earliest purpose‑built medical facilities in the country.&nbsp;

Pine Building Pennsylvania Hospital

Founded largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin.

Its Greek Revival headquarters, with Corinthian columns.&nbsp;

Expanded the living quarters on the top two floors by adding a mansard roof along with a marble cornice between the third and fourth floors.

The oldest property insurance company in the United States. Created as a mutual fire-insurance organization, it pioneered practices that became fundamental to modern insurance, including inspecting properties, assessing risk when setting rates, rejecting unsafe buildings, and maintaining a financial reserve for claims. The company also placed distinctive “four hands” fire-insurance marks on insured buildings. Still operating today, the Contributionship remains a remarkable link between Philadelphia’s colonial history and the origins of the modern insurance industry.

Beginning in the 1750s, some American insurance companies issued metal fire marks to policyholders to signify that their property was insured against fire damage. The fire marks bore the name and/or symbol of the insurer, and some included the customer’s policy number. The company or agent would then affix the mark to the policyholder’s home or business. For owners the mark served as proof of insurance and a deterrent against arson. For insurance companies the mark served as a form of advertising, and alerted volunteer firefighters that the property was insured.The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire issued this fire mark for policy number 1678 to the home at 237 South Front Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the 1780s. The fire mark consists of the company’s symbol cast in lead showing four hands clasped at the wrist attached to a shield-shaped wooden backing. The Philadelphia Contributionship was established in 1752, becoming the first successful fire insurance company in America. Benjamin Franklin was one of its founding members. The Contributionship began as a mutual insurance company and this concept is represented by its “Hand in Hand” fire mark. The Philadelphia Contributionship is still in operation.

Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire

The Second Bank of the United States was the nation’s second federally authorized national bank, chartered in 1816 under President James Madison. Headquartered in Philadelphia, it served as the federal government’s fiscal agent, helping regulate private banks, manage government finances, and maintain a stable national currency. With branches across the country, it became one of the largest financial institutions of its time.&nbsp;

Its charter became the focus of the Bank War under President Andrew Jackson, and after failing to secure recharter, the bank became a private corporation.

The bank was liquidated. There would not be national banks again until the passage of the National Bank Act in 1863–1864.

The Second Bank of the United States, completed in 1824, is one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the early republic and a defining work of architect William Strickland. Chartered by Congress in 1816 after the financial instability that followed the War of 1812, the Bank served as the nation’s central financial institution during a turbulent period marked by debates over federal authority, monetary policy, and the role of public credit. Its most famous president, Nicholas Biddle, oversaw the Bank during the political struggle with President Andrew Jackson that culminated in the Bank’s charter being allowed to expire in 1836.The building’s monumental design—modeled on the Parthenon, with a massive Doric portico and marble façade—symbolized stability, republican virtue, and the federal government’s financial ambitions. After the Bank’s dissolution, the structure housed the U.S. Custom House and later various federal offices before becoming part of Independence National Historical Park.Today, the Second Bank is best known for its Charles Willson Peale Portrait Gallery, a museum installation that recreates Peale’s vision and displays an unparalleled collection of 18th‑ and early 19th‑century American portraits. The building remains one of Philadelphia’s most iconic neoclassical landmarks and a key site for interpreting the nation’s early financial and artistic history

Caption: "United States Bank at Philadelphia" Text: "The central office of the United States Bank, was a Philadelphia, and a fine marble building was devoted to its use. This bank, which ceased by limitation of its charter, in 1836, to be a national institution, was rechartered by the state of Pennsylvania as a state institution. Thus deprived of the main elements of its strength, and being imprudently managed, it was involved in the bankruptcy which, at the period we are speaking of, spread over the country. The building above alluded to, which is still one of the ornaments of the city of Philadelphia, is now used for the Custom House of this city."Goodrich, S. G. (1875). A Pictorial History of the United States. Philadelphia: J. H. Butler &amp; Co., 389.

Praises Andrew Jackson for his destroying the Second Bank of the United States with his "Removal Notice" (removal of federal deposits). Nicolas Biddle portrayed as The Devil, along with several speculators and hirelings, flee as the bank collapses while Jackson's supporters cheer.

Author: Bureau of Engraving and Printing&nbsp;

Second Bank of the United States

In order to drum up public support for the revolutionary war effort, Benjamin Franklin convinced the Continental Congress to commission the monument, to build support for separation from Britain. Benjamin Franklin championed the monument from its design to its installation, in spite of the intervening war and paltry coffers.On January 25 1776, Benjamin Franklin was given 300 pounds sterling to oversee its creation commissioning the French royal sculptor, Jean-Jacques Caffieri. &nbsp;After Caffieri completed the sculpture in 1777, Franklin had the chutzpa to show it off in Paris while the war still raged.&nbsp;It was shipped to America in 9 lead sealed cases.

The monument was lost first at Le Havre and then in Edenton, North Carolina and did not arrive for about a decade.The Common council recommended that the monument be installed in St Paul’s chapel.&nbsp;Pierre L’Enfant directed the installation. Montgomery is buried beneath the monument.This was the first piece of commissioned public artwork by the new country.

Leading the charge of the Battle of Quebec, Major General Richard Montgomery died under British fire in 1775.&nbsp;

"25th January 1776 to tranfmit to Pofterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotism conduct enterprize &amp;amp; perfeverance of Major General Richard Montgomery. Who after a feries of succefses amidft the most difcouragning difficulties fell in the attack on Quebec 31st December 1775, aged 37 years."  

Because the monument honoring General Montgomery created a shadowy outline in the altar window as seen from the nave, a design for the interior of the window was made by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French architect who created the master plan for the city of Washington, DC. The design, executed by a woodcarver, represents God’s glory on Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, from Exodus 24.

St. Paul's Chapel

Montgomery Monument

Kaplan discusses the history and significance of St. Paul's Church, the oldest private building in NYC, from Benedict Arnold to 9/11.

This sculptural portrait of Franklin was commissioned as a gift to the City by Albert De Groot, a retired Hudson Valley steamboat captain. Park Row was for decades the center of New York`s publishing industry and newspaper businesses, and given Franklin`s activities as a printer of paper currency and publisher of newspapers and almanacs, the choice of location was particularly apt. DeGroot had earlier collaborated with Plassman on the creation of the Cornelius Vanderbilt statue (1869), which stands in the viaduct in front of Grand Central Terminal. This colossal bronze effigy depicts Franklin in 18th-century dress, holding a copy of the Philadelphia Gazette. A second casting may be viewed in the lobby of the High School of Graphic Communication Arts at 439 West 49th Street. On January 17, 1872, the 166th anniversary of Franklin`s birth, the statue was formally unveiled in a lavish ceremony in which artist and inventor Samuel F. Morse removed the shroud and newspaper publisher Horace Greeley delivered the keynote address. Charles C. Savage, speaking on behalf of the New York Typographical Society, commented: &ldquo;It is appropriate that this statue should be erected in this centre of our trade, in the very midst of our craft-work, instead of in Central Park; for Franklin`s life was devoted to practical hard work, rather than to the ornamental and the recreative.&rdquo; Today the sculpture stands in a small triangle, with Pace University as its backdrop. Having suffered from environmental corrosion, the statue was treated and restored by the Parks` monuments crew on four occasions between the 1940s and the 1980s. In 1999 the City Parks Foundation Monuments Conservation Program, with funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, American Express Company, and Samuel H. Kress Foundation, conducted a complete conservation of the statue and its large granite pedestal. Today this portrait of an American icon, with renewed luster, maintains his watchful gaze over this crossroads of civic life.Ernest Plassman's sculpture was unveiled in an elaborate ceremony with more than 20,000 people with Samuel Morse presiding. He caught pneumonia and died shortly afterward.

His experiments with electricity include the oft-reported use of a kite as a conductor during a lightning storm. Some of his more practical inventions include an open stove for home heating (dubbed &amp;ldquo;the Franklin stove&amp;rdquo;), bi-focal eyeglasses, and the lightning rod.  

Printing House Square

Benjamin Franklin statue at Pace Plaza

 Jonathan Kuhn, Director of Art and Antiquities in NYC Parks, talks about the Benjamin Franklin sculpture located across from City Hall in Lower Manhattan. The sculpture is located on Publisher's Row; Franklin of course was very influential in publishing, being a statesman, and negotiation. 

BLS, established in 1635, is the oldest public school in colonial-era British America and the U.S. It was modeled after England's Free Grammar School under Rev. John Cotton's influence. First Boston Latin School House was a series of homes of each head master. Initially held in Master Philemon Pormort's home, it educated boys in classics, primarily to prepare for Harvard. John Hull was its first graduate in 1637. Funded by donations, not taxes, it emphasized Latin, essential for colonial colleges. Most graduates pursued business or professions, not college, despite the strong academic focus on the classics.

Third BLS school house on Bedford Street was built 1844 and shared the site with English High. School until 1881. Part of the site became home to R. H. White department store in 1876. The Girls' Latin School was founded in 1877.

The fourth location of BLS school house on Warren Avenue, (shared with the English High School of Boston

BLS admitted its first co-educational class in 1972.

The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts.&nbsp;

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS "We are looking at two photographs of classrooms at the Boston Latin School, one made in 1907, the other in 2002. They offer a visual record of changing values and demographics. In 1967, all the students and their bearded teacher are white, all are male, and all are wearing jackets and ties. On the blackboard is an elaborate chalk-drawn timeline, titled ‘A Literature Graph,’ of English and American writing. All the authors in the graph are white and male, too. Some of the choices feel odd today. On the English timeline are Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, Gray, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Macaulay, and Tennyson. On the American line are Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Emerson, and Lowell – and nobody else. The sense that culture is a closed society, a small club of Anglophile men, is very strong. Needless to say, there’s no literature graph in the new photo. Instead, the blackboard tells us the class is studying cell biology with teacher Patreka Wood, who is a woman of color. The students are obviously of both genders and many backgrounds. They stuff their backpacks informally under their seats. Instead of ties, they often wear information about where they shop: Gap, Nike, Abercrombie. You may not be able to see it in the photo, but two of the kids are making faces at the camera. It’s a totally different world from 1907. It’s informal, diverse, and consumer-oriented, as is Boston itself today. Boston Latin is one of our remarkable institutions. It is the oldest public school in the country, having been founded in 1635, one year before Harvard. Things may be changing at Latin, but they change more slowly than elsewhere. According to the school’s Web site, ‘The curriculum of the school is centered in the humanities, its founders sharing with the ancient Greeks the belief that the only good things are the goods of the soul.’ Entry is by examination. Among the many notable graduates are Benjamin Franklin, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Leonard Bernstein. The present building opened on Avenue Louis Pasteur in 1922. The two photos, therefore, are of different buildings. But the kids in 2002 appear to be sitting at the same desks as the kids of 1907, desks with inkwell holes and ornamental cast-iron legs. Electric light, however, has apparently been added." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Boston Latin School," Boston Globe, 2002

In which Ezekiel Cheever probably began to teach&nbsp;Source: &nbsp;Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School

1812-1844Source: &nbsp;Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School

Source: &nbsp;Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School

1st location

2nd location

3rd location

4th location

5th location

Boston Latin School

Congress immediately appropriated funds for a memorial and tasked Benjamin Franklin with its execution. &nbsp;A national memorial service was held in all the colonies.

Congress immediately appropriated funds for a memorial and tasked Benjamin Franklin with its execution. &nbsp;A national memorial service was held in all the colonies. &nbsp;Governor Stephen van Rensselaer received permission to move the remains from Quebec to New York. &nbsp;The procession traveled on the Hudson River via boat.

Over 5000 people viewed the ceremony at St Paul's Chapel in New York.

Just outside the  St. Louis Gate, along the road to the Citadel entrance

The Citadel.  

Montgomery remains moved from Canada to New York

On December 10, 1672, New York Governor Francis Lovelace made an ambitious announcement: monthly postal service between New York and Boston.Lovelace’s proclamation spurned the creation of Boston Post Road, and laid the foundation for the U.S. Postal Service.Lovelace considered mail service both “convenient and necessary … for a more speedy Inteligence and Dispatch of Affayres’’ according to the proclamation.He proclaimed “that a Messenger of Post bee authorized to sett forth from this City of New Yorke monthly, and thence travile to Boston, from whence within that month hee shall returne againe to this City.’’The job of America’s first postman, whose identity remains a mystery, was not just the delivery of mail from New York to Boston. He was also tasked with setting up a system for mail delivery along the route, marking trees along the route to assist others, and making sure to “detect and cause to bee apprehended all fugitive Souldyers and Servants runn away from these parts.’’Lovelace’s edict led to the creation of Boston Post Road – sometimes known as King’s Highway – that led from the tip of Manhattan all the way to downtown Boston.The path that became the country’s first postal route had been blazed long before, by Native Americans who set fire to the plant growth along it each November to keep it passable. But navigating the path was dangerous: travelers were faced with slippery rocks, snakes, frigid temperatures, rushing rivers, and the inherent risk of getting lost along the way.At certain points, the path was only a foot and a half wide, according to the book The King’s Best Highway.Until Lovelace introduced the Boston Post Road, mail service was done by courier, and was frequently unreliable. In 1669, some of Lovelace’s own letters disappeared, according to the book American Passage.But that wasn’t Lovelace’s only motivation.He worried the Dutch might invade New York, and he wanted to make sure he was able to maintain close communications with New England.Lovelace’s grand experiment was put to the test on January 22, 1673, when the first mail left New York, bound for Boston.The journey took the postman approximately 2 weeks, according to the book The Old Post Road.He traveled from New York to New Haven, then onto Hartford, then Springfield, then Brookfield, Worcester, Cambridge, and finally Boston.The route remained treacherous long after Lovelace’s 1672 proclamation, as evidenced by the diary of Sarah Kemble Knight, who made the trip in 1704.Knight described the road as “exceedingly dark’’ and “very bad, incumbered with rocks and mountainous passages.’’Of the trees lining the route, Knight wrote that “each lifeless Trunk, with its shatter’d Limbs, appear’d an Armed Enymie.’’

Benjamin Franklin, then Deputy Postmaster of the English colonies, traveled Connecticut's lower post road to set standardized postal rates based on distance. Using a carriage-mounted odometer, he placed stone markers at mile intervals along the route. Following his efforts, Connecticut's General Assembly required towns along post routes to install mile markers.

New York Governor Lovelace announces monthly mail service between New York &amp; Boston and starts it with his Connecticut counterpart, John Winthrop Jr.

by "Stephen Jenkins, ''The old Boston Post Road'' (G.P. Putnam and Sons, New York and London, 1914)

Lovelace Tavern excavation site

Old Boston Post Road

Save Willie McGee (c. 1916 – May 8, 1951) painted in 1950, oil on canvas. Willie McGee was a Black 36-year-old truck driver who was sentenced to death in the electric chair for the alleged rape of white homemaker in Mississippi, Willette Hawkins on November 2, 1945.This painting presents protestors at the statue of Benjamin Franklin across from New York’s City Hall; it was likely made around 6 May 1951, when demonstrators in Washington picketed the White House before chaining themselves to the Lincoln Memorial. Two days later, despite the public outcry, McGee was executed. On his final night, he wrote to his wife: ‘Tell the people to keep on fighting.’Willie McGee's case became an international cause célèbre, with many viewing his conviction and execution as a miscarriage of justice shaped by racial prejudice in the Jim Crow South. However, later research by journalist Alexander S. Heard suggested the case was more complex than it had long been portrayed. In his 2010 book, Heard found that Rosalee McGee, who had publicly claimed to be McGee's wife and corroborated his account, was not actually married to him. According to Heard, she met McGee only after his trial and had been recruited by the Civil Rights Congress to pose as his wife in an effort to strengthen public support for his case.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Save Willie McGee

Dropped out from the Boston Latin School

An American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the first United States Postmaster General. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.&nbsp;

printed by Benjamin Franklin Bache on marbled paper obtained by Benjamin Franklin.

Childhood Residence

Philadelphia Residence

London Residence

Hotel Valentinois

Paris Residence

Benjamin Franklin

He is best known as the only Founding Father who signed all three documents that freed America from Britain Franklin is credited with drafting the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.&nbsp;

At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “What have you wrought?” He answered, “…a Republic, if you can keep it."

Benjamin Franklin

SITES

Related Sites

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS