Library Company of Philadelphia
We don’t see too many white cloth bound books, and those we do see are usually quite discolored. At least the grayed cloth on our copy of Pictorial Life of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia, 1846) adds to the moodiness of those gilt-stamped clouds!
#PublishersBindingThursday
Pictorial life of Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston.
1846.
We’re excited to share the latest episode of the Library Company’s podcast Talking in the Library: Season 1, Episode 4: Benjamin Franklin and Immigration with Dr. Carla Mulford.
In this episode, the Library Company’s Director of Scholarly Innovation, Dr. Will Fenton, speaks with former Library Company fellow, Dr. Carla J. Mulford, Professor of English at Penn State University and the Founding President of the Society of Early Americanists.
Dr. Mulford has published widely in the field of early American studies; however, Benjamin Franklin has been her preoccupation for over 25 years. In fact, she has published over 20 articles and book chapters on Franklin, in addition to The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Franklin (2008) and Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of
Empire (Oxford University Press, 2015). In spring 2019, Dr. Mulford led the Library Company seminar “Benjamin Franklin and
Immigration,” which considered how Franklin’s ideas about immigrants and immigration evolved as his career moved from being a colonial leader in Philadelphia to a citizen of the world.
Talking in the Library is also available for streaming on SoundCloud, ITunes, and Google Play.
It was bound to happen: we have fallen in love with a paper binding <3
This pocket almanac for 1755 was printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 and is bound in embossed and colored paper wrappers. #MiniatureMonday
Library Company founder Benjamin Franklin knew what was up when he said “The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars.“
With this sentiment in mind, we wish you a happy #NationalWineDay! We have a feeling Ben would be celebrating. Cheers!
Check out our new series: Shareholder Spotlight
Imagine you’re hanging out with a group of friends at a bar, engaged in a conversation about a current topic. When half of your friends begin disagreeing with the other half over a point, what resources do you consult to settle the matter? If there are no readily available resources, would you and your friends consider founding a library?
For Benjamin Franklin and his friends in 1731, this scenario was a reality, and the beginning of the Library Company.
In our new Shareholder Spotlight series, we highlight the lives and contributions of the men and women who were instrumental in the creation and sustainability of the Library Company over the last 287 years.
Check out our blog to read about the Library Company’s first shareholder, Mr. Robert Grace.
Articles of Association. Manuscript on vellum, Philadelphia, July 1, 1731.
Library Company research fellow Monica Anke Hahn has been transcribing 1762 marginalia by Peter Collinson found in our copy of Maitland’s History of London (1739):
“Those two nurserys of Vice & Lewdness, Bartholomew Fair kept in Smithfields, Southward Fair kept in the Borough, these had for ages continued to be held for Two Weeks Each, down to my Memory … but growing so notorious for all manner of Wickedness it was often with concern such scenes of Debauchery & Immorality was propagated to the Ruining and undoing the youth of this Great Metropolis.”
Over his years of ownership of History of London, Collinson tipped in numerous additional plates, plans, notes,
documents, and clippings, with the last note dated just two years before his death.
Collinson played an enormous role in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin. Not only did Collinson “discover” Franklin, send him scientific equipment for experiments in electricity, and introduce him to members of the Royal Society for the first time, he also served as the first book purchasing agent for the Library Company of Philadelphia, Franklin’s historic experiment in democratizing knowledge.
You can see a portion of Collinson’s copy of the History of London here.
#LCPFellowFriday
At the Library Company of Philadelphia, it doesn’t get more #VintageLibrary than our original Lion’s Mouth Suggestion Box.
Benjamin Franklin drafted the Library Company’s plans, rules, and articles of agreement in 1731, after he and a group of like-minded individuals conceived the idea of a subscription library in which all members would pool their financial resources in order to afford a larger and finer library than any one of them could have amassed individually.
The first book order was sent to England on March 31, 1732. The list of books ordered was representative of the kind of books that could be found in any good colonial American, or even English, private library. The largest portion included titles on history and travels, followed by literature. Small segments dealt with the sciences, theology, philosophy, economics, and linguistics. The works were useful because the desire for the books stemmed from the readers themselves as evidenced by the suggestion box, which reads:
Gentlemen are requested to deposite in the lion’s mouth the titles of such books as they may wish to have imported.
Franklin’s ingenious solution to the problem of access to books, the subscription library, was copied up and down the Atlantic seaboard from Salem, Massachusetts, to Charleston, South Carolina.
Suggestion Box.
Lion’s Mouth Box.
Painted metal ; 11 3/8 x 8 x 5 5/8 inches.
Leaves, rattlesnakes, and a burgeoning nation in need of paper money:
The Library Company’s Jim Green tells the story of Joseph Breintnall and his role in inspiring Benjamin Franklin to use leaf prints as an anti-counterfeiting measure for Pennsylvania’s paper currency– today in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Read all about it HERE
Today we celebrate the birthday of our founder, Benjamin Franklin, born on this day 311 years ago! We love this 19th-century Staffordshire figurine of Franklin, which was featured in our 2015 exhibition Fashioning Philadelphia - The Style of the City, 1720-1940. He certainly looks fashionable in his vest with floral decoration and gold-striped breeches.
Although we don’t know who created them, we love these ink drawings that were found on the front free endpaper of Benjamin Franklin’s copy of congressional proceedings from November 1783 to June 1784.