Library Company of Philadelphia
Encyclopedia
The Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) is a non-profit organization
based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. Founded by Benjamin Franklin
as a library
, the Library Company of Philadelphia has accumulated one of the most significant collections of historically valuable manuscript
s and printed material in the United States
.
The current collection size is about 500,000 books and 70,000 other items, including 2,150 items that once belonged to Franklin, the Mayflower Compact
, major collections of 17th century and Revolution
-era pamphlet
s and ephemera
, map
s, and whole libraries assembled in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection also includes first editions
of Moby-Dick
and Leaves of Grass
.
, that gravitated around Benjamin Franklin. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and a number of his fellow members among the Junto drew up "Articles of Agreement" to found a library, for they had discovered that their far-ranging conversations on intellectual
and political themes foundered at times on a point of fact that might be found in a decent library. In colonial Pennsylvania at the time there were not many books; Books from London
booksellers
were expensive to purchase and slow to arrive. Franklin and his friends were mostly of moderate means, and none alone could have afforded a representative library such as a gentleman of leisure might expect to assemble. By pooling their resources in pragmatic Franklinian fashion, as the Library Company's historian wrote, "the contribution of each created the book capital of all." The first librarian they hired was Louis Timothee
, being America's first.
Thus fifty subscribers invested 40 shilling
s each and promised to pay ten shillings a year thereafter to buy books and maintain a shareholder's library. Therefore, "the Mother of all American subscription libraries
" was established, and a list of desired books compiled in part by James Logan
, "the best Judge of Books in these parts," was sent to London and by autumn the first books were on the shelves.
Earlier libraries in the Thirteen Colonies
belonged to gentlemen, members of the clergy
, and college
s. Members of the Library Company soon opened their own book presses to make donations: A Collection of Several Pieces, by John Locke
; Logic: or, the Art of Thinking, by the Port Royalists Antoine Arnauld
and Pierre Nicole
, which Franklin in his autobiography said he had read at the age of 16; Plutarch's
Moralia
translated by Philemon Holland
; Lewis Roberts' Merchants Mappe of Commerce, and others. A bit later William Rawle added a set of Spenser's Works to the collection and Francis Richardson gave several volumes, among them Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, but on the whole books in Latin were few.
Overtures to the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, John Penn
at Pennsbury
did not at first elicit more than a polite response, but an unsolicited gift of 34 pound sterling
arrived in the summer of 1738 from Walter Sydserfe, a Scottish-born physician and planter of Antigua
.
The earliest surviving printed catalogue of 1741 gives the range of readers' tastes, for the members' requirements shaped the collection. Excluding gifts, a third of the holdings of 375 titles were historical works, geographies
and accounts of voyages and travels, a category the Library Company has collected energetically throughout its history. A fifth of the titles were literature
, mostly in the form of poetry and plays, for the prose novel
was still in its infancy: as late as 1783, in the first orders from London after the war years, the directors thought "we should not think it expedient to add to our present stock, anything in the novel way." Another fifth of the titles were devoted to works of science
. Theology
and sermon
s, however, accounted for only a tenth of the titles, which set the Free Library apart from collegiate libraries at Harvard
and Yale
. The Company's agent in London was Peter Collinson
, Fellow of the Royal Society
, the Quaker
mercer-naturalist of London, who corresponded with John Bartram
.
The Library Company's example was soon imitated in other cities along the Atlantic coast
, from Salem
to Charleston
. The Library soon became a repository of other curiosities: antique coins, including a gift of Roman coins
from a Tory Member of Parliament
, fossil
s, natural history
specimens, mineral
s. When John Penn, making up for his slow start, sent an air-pump to the learned society in 1739, the directors, to house it commissioned a glazed cabinet, the earliest extant example of American-made Palladian
architectural furniture. Rooms on the second floor of the newly finished west wing of the State House (now Independence Hall) housed the Library and its collections: there Franklin and his associates performed their first experiments in electricity during the 1740s. Later Benjamin West
sent the mummified
hand of an Egyptian princess.
A charter was issued for the Company from the Penn proprietors, March 24, 1742, that included a plot of land, issued in their name by Governor George Thomas. Collinson, who had faithfully executed the Company's requests for books over the years, sent windfalls in 1755 and in 1758 in the form of boxes of his own copies of a score of 17th-century accounts of the newly established British colonies in America, among them such classics as Strachey's Lawes, Mourt's Relation and John Smith
's Generall Historie of Virginia.
The Library Company's microscope
and telescope
were frequently borrowed; in 1769 Owen Biddle used the telescope to observe the transit of Venus
from Cape Henlopen
. On May 9, that year Sarah Wistar became the first woman to be voted a library share.
The Library absorbed smaller lending libraries and outgrew its rooms, renting larger space on the second floor of the new Carpenters' Company hall
in 1773. "The Books (inclosed within Wire Lattices) are kept in one large Room," Franklin was informed in London, "and in another handsome Apartment the [scientific] Apparatus is deposited and the Directors meet." On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress
met on the first floor of Carpenters' Hall
, and the Library Company extended members' privileges to all the delegates. The offer was renewed when the Second Continental Congress
met the following spring, and again when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention
met in 1787. Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence—Benjamin Franklin
, Benjamin Rush
, Francis Hopkinson
, Robert Morris
, George Clymer
, John Morton
, James Wilson
, Thomas McKean
, and George Ross
—owned shares, and some of them served as directors. The Library Company served virtually as a Library of Congress until the national capital was established in 1800.
In 1785 the Company purchased a collection of Revolutionary broadsheets pamphlets and other ephemera that had been assiduously collected by a would-be historian, of which no other copies have survived.
Permanent quarters were established for the Library Company in 1789 with the purchase of a lot on Fifth Street near Chestnut across from the State House Square. A competition for the design of a building was won by an amateur of architecture, Dr. William Thornton
, with a plan for a Palladian red-brick structure with white pilasters and a pediment interrupting a balustraded roof. A curving double flight of steps led up to the arched door under an arched niche containing a gift from William Bingham
— a marble statue of Franklin in a classical toga sculpted in Italy by Francesco Lazzarini. Member's shares were extended to carpenters and bricklayers in partial payment for work on the new building. The new quarters were opened on New Year's Day, 1791. For the new library Samuel Jennings, an expatriate Philadelphian living in London, painted a large picture, "Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences
."
In 1792 the Loganian Library, which had been housed across the square, was transferred to the Library Company, complementing its collection with the 2600 books (chiefly in Latin and Greek) that had been collected by James Logan. This collection was supplemented by the medical library of James Logan's younger brother, a physician in Bristol, England, the best medical library then in North America. Thornton's new building immediately required a new wing.
, Yale University Library
, Library of Congress
, and Boston Athenæum
.
The Library Company's collections were physically split in the mid-19th century. A large bequest from Dr. James Rush resulted in a new building at Broad and Christian streets in South Philadelphia. The Ridgway Library, as it was called, was controversial because it was both physically and socially removed from the homes and businesses of the members. A new, more centrally located library, designed by Frank Furness
, opened its doors in 1880 at Juniper and Locust Street.
and was forced to sell the Locust Street building and consolidate the collections in the Ridgeway Library on South Broad Street
. As its fortunes improved after the war, the institution focused on its mission as a scholarly research library. In the second half of the 20th century, under the direction of Edwin Wolf, energetic programs of renewal brought the Library Company once more into a busy and vital center of national importance for research and education. The Library Company completed a new building on Locust Street, also named the Ridgeway Library, in 1965, and opened it to the public in April 1966.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Founded by Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
as a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, the Library Company of Philadelphia has accumulated one of the most significant collections of historically valuable manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s and printed material in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The current collection size is about 500,000 books and 70,000 other items, including 2,150 items that once belonged to Franklin, the Mayflower Compact
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower...
, major collections of 17th century and Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
-era pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s and ephemera
Ephemera
Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...
, map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
s, and whole libraries assembled in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection also includes first editions
Edition (book)
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...
of Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
and Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman . Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death...
.
History
The Library Company was an offshoot of the Junto, a discussion group in colonial Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaProvince of Pennsylvania
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as Pennsylvania Colony, was founded in British America by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II...
, that gravitated around Benjamin Franklin. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and a number of his fellow members among the Junto drew up "Articles of Agreement" to found a library, for they had discovered that their far-ranging conversations on intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
and political themes foundered at times on a point of fact that might be found in a decent library. In colonial Pennsylvania at the time there were not many books; Books from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
booksellers
Bookselling
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers or bookmen.-Bookstores today:...
were expensive to purchase and slow to arrive. Franklin and his friends were mostly of moderate means, and none alone could have afforded a representative library such as a gentleman of leisure might expect to assemble. By pooling their resources in pragmatic Franklinian fashion, as the Library Company's historian wrote, "the contribution of each created the book capital of all." The first librarian they hired was Louis Timothee
Louis Timothee
Louis Timothee was a prominent Colonial American printer in the Colony of Pennsylvania, who worked for Benjamin Franklin. He was the first American librarian.-Early life:...
, being America's first.
Thus fifty subscribers invested 40 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s each and promised to pay ten shillings a year thereafter to buy books and maintain a shareholder's library. Therefore, "the Mother of all American subscription libraries
Subscription library
A subscription library is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments...
" was established, and a list of desired books compiled in part by James Logan
James Logan (statesman)
James Logan , a statesman and scholar, was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland of Scottish descent and Quaker parentage. In 1689, the Logan family moved to Bristol, England where, in 1693, James replaced his father as schoolmaster...
, "the best Judge of Books in these parts," was sent to London and by autumn the first books were on the shelves.
Earlier libraries in the Thirteen Colonies
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
belonged to gentlemen, members of the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, and college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
s. Members of the Library Company soon opened their own book presses to make donations: A Collection of Several Pieces, by John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
; Logic: or, the Art of Thinking, by the Port Royalists Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld — le Grand as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician...
and Pierre Nicole
Pierre Nicole
Pierre Nicole was one of the most distinguished of the French Jansenists.Born in Chartres, he was the son of a provincial barrister, who took in charge his education...
, which Franklin in his autobiography said he had read at the age of 16; Plutarch's
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
Moralia
Moralia
The Moralia of the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea is an eclectic collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They give an insight into Roman and Greek life, but often are also fascinating timeless observations in their own right...
translated by Philemon Holland
Philemon Holland
Philemon Holland was an English translator.His father, John Holland, was a clergyman who fled the Kingdom of England during the persecutions of Mary I of England...
; Lewis Roberts' Merchants Mappe of Commerce, and others. A bit later William Rawle added a set of Spenser's Works to the collection and Francis Richardson gave several volumes, among them Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, but on the whole books in Latin were few.
Overtures to the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, John Penn
John Penn
John Penn is the name of:* John Penn , Pennsylvania proprietor, only son of William Penn born in America* John Penn , colonial governor of Pennsylvania, grandson of William Penn, son of Richard Penn, Sr....
at Pennsbury
Pennsbury Manor
Pennsbury Manor, an estate in Falls Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was the American home of William Penn, founder and first Governor of Pennsylvania. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1969.-History:...
did not at first elicit more than a polite response, but an unsolicited gift of 34 pound sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
arrived in the summer of 1738 from Walter Sydserfe, a Scottish-born physician and planter of Antigua
Antigua
Antigua , also known as Waladli, is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua means "ancient" in Spanish and was named by Christopher Columbus after an icon in Seville Cathedral, Santa Maria de la...
.
The earliest surviving printed catalogue of 1741 gives the range of readers' tastes, for the members' requirements shaped the collection. Excluding gifts, a third of the holdings of 375 titles were historical works, geographies
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and accounts of voyages and travels, a category the Library Company has collected energetically throughout its history. A fifth of the titles were literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, mostly in the form of poetry and plays, for the prose novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
was still in its infancy: as late as 1783, in the first orders from London after the war years, the directors thought "we should not think it expedient to add to our present stock, anything in the novel way." Another fifth of the titles were devoted to works of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. Theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and sermon
Sermon
A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
s, however, accounted for only a tenth of the titles, which set the Free Library apart from collegiate libraries at Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. The Company's agent in London was Peter Collinson
Peter Collinson FRS
Peter Collinson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, an avid gardener, and the middleman for an international exchange of scientific ideas in mid-18th century London...
, Fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, the Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
mercer-naturalist of London, who corresponded with John Bartram
John Bartram
*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....
.
The Library Company's example was soon imitated in other cities along the Atlantic coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
, from Salem
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
to Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
. The Library soon became a repository of other curiosities: antique coins, including a gift of Roman coins
Roman currency
The Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including the aureus , the denarius , the sestertius , the dupondius , and the as...
from a Tory Member of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
, fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s, natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
specimens, mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
s. When John Penn, making up for his slow start, sent an air-pump to the learned society in 1739, the directors, to house it commissioned a glazed cabinet, the earliest extant example of American-made Palladian
Palladian architecture
Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...
architectural furniture. Rooms on the second floor of the newly finished west wing of the State House (now Independence Hall) housed the Library and its collections: there Franklin and his associates performed their first experiments in electricity during the 1740s. Later Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
sent the mummified
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
hand of an Egyptian princess.
A charter was issued for the Company from the Penn proprietors, March 24, 1742, that included a plot of land, issued in their name by Governor George Thomas. Collinson, who had faithfully executed the Company's requests for books over the years, sent windfalls in 1755 and in 1758 in the form of boxes of his own copies of a score of 17th-century accounts of the newly established British colonies in America, among them such classics as Strachey's Lawes, Mourt's Relation and John Smith
John Smith of Jamestown
Captain John Smith Admiral of New England was an English soldier, explorer, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Bathory, Prince of Transylvania and friend Mózes Székely...
's Generall Historie of Virginia.
The Library Company's microscope
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
and telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
were frequently borrowed; in 1769 Owen Biddle used the telescope to observe the transit of Venus
Transit of Venus
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun...
from Cape Henlopen
Cape Henlopen
Cape Henlopen is the southern cape of the Delaware Bay along the Atlantic coast of the United States. It lies in the state of Delaware, near the town of Lewes, Delaware...
. On May 9, that year Sarah Wistar became the first woman to be voted a library share.
The Library absorbed smaller lending libraries and outgrew its rooms, renting larger space on the second floor of the new Carpenters' Company hall
Carpenters' Hall
Carpenters' Hall is a two-story brick building in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Completed in 1773 and set back from Chestnut Street, the meeting hall was built for and is still owned by the...
in 1773. "The Books (inclosed within Wire Lattices) are kept in one large Room," Franklin was informed in London, "and in another handsome Apartment the [scientific] Apparatus is deposited and the Directors meet." On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts by the...
met on the first floor of Carpenters' Hall
Carpenters' Hall
Carpenters' Hall is a two-story brick building in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Completed in 1773 and set back from Chestnut Street, the meeting hall was built for and is still owned by the...
, and the Library Company extended members' privileges to all the delegates. The offer was renewed when the Second Continental Congress
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774,...
met the following spring, and again when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention
Philadelphia Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from...
met in 1787. Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence—Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
, Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson , an American author, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey. He later served as a federal judge in Pennsylvania...
, Robert Morris
Robert Morris (merchant)
Robert Morris, Jr. was a British-born American merchant, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution...
, George Clymer
George Clymer
George Clymer was an American politician and founding father. He was one of the first Patriots to advocate complete independence from Britain. As a Pennsylvania representative, Clymer was, along with five others, a signatory of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution...
, John Morton
John Morton (politician)
John Morton was a farmer, surveyor, and jurist from the Province of Pennsylvania. As a delegate to the Continental Congress during the American Revolution, he provided the swing vote that allowed Pennsylvania to vote in favor of the United States Declaration of Independence...
, James Wilson
James Wilson
James Wilson was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a major force in drafting the United States Constitution...
, Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of...
, and George Ross
George Ross (delegate)
George Ross was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Pennsylvania.He was born in New Castle, Delaware, and educated at home. He studied law at his brother John's law office, the common practice in those days, and was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia...
—owned shares, and some of them served as directors. The Library Company served virtually as a Library of Congress until the national capital was established in 1800.
- "Virtually every significant work on political theory, history, law, and statecraft (and much else besides) could be found on the Library Company's shelves, as well as numerous tracts and polemical writings by American as well as European authors. And virtually all of those works that were influential in framing the minds of the Framers of the nation are still on the Library Company's shelves" http://www.librarycompany.org/instance.htm.
Permanent quarters were established for the Library Company in 1789 with the purchase of a lot on Fifth Street near Chestnut across from the State House Square. A competition for the design of a building was won by an amateur of architecture, Dr. William Thornton
William Thornton
Dr. William Thornton was a British-American physician, inventor, painter and architect who designed the United States Capitol, an authentic polymath...
, with a plan for a Palladian red-brick structure with white pilasters and a pediment interrupting a balustraded roof. A curving double flight of steps led up to the arched door under an arched niche containing a gift from William Bingham
William Bingham
William Bingham was an American statesman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788 and served in the United States Senate from 1795 to 1801...
— a marble statue of Franklin in a classical toga sculpted in Italy by Francesco Lazzarini. Member's shares were extended to carpenters and bricklayers in partial payment for work on the new building. The new quarters were opened on New Year's Day, 1791. For the new library Samuel Jennings, an expatriate Philadelphian living in London, painted a large picture, "Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences
Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences
Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences is an oil-on-canvas painting by American artist Samuel Jennings.The Library Company of Philadelphia, a private lending library founded in the mid-18th century, commissioned Jennings to create a work depicting "the figure of Liberty displaying the arts",...
."
In 1792 the Loganian Library, which had been housed across the square, was transferred to the Library Company, complementing its collection with the 2600 books (chiefly in Latin and Greek) that had been collected by James Logan. This collection was supplemented by the medical library of James Logan's younger brother, a physician in Bristol, England, the best medical library then in North America. Thornton's new building immediately required a new wing.
19th century
The collections went from strength to strength in the 19th century. In mid-century it was considered one of the "five great libraries" in the United States, along with the Harvard University LibraryHarvard University Library
The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...
, Yale University Library
Yale University Library
Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It is the second-largest academic library in the North America, with approximately 12.5 million volumes housed in 20 buildings on campus...
, Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, and Boston Athenæum
Boston Athenæum
Boston Athenæum is one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It is also one of only sixteen extant membership libraries, meaning that patrons pay a yearly subscription fee to use the Athenæum's services...
.
The Library Company's collections were physically split in the mid-19th century. A large bequest from Dr. James Rush resulted in a new building at Broad and Christian streets in South Philadelphia. The Ridgway Library, as it was called, was controversial because it was both physically and socially removed from the homes and businesses of the members. A new, more centrally located library, designed by Frank Furness
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...
, opened its doors in 1880 at Juniper and Locust Street.
20th century
The Library Company suffered financial troubles during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and was forced to sell the Locust Street building and consolidate the collections in the Ridgeway Library on South Broad Street
Broad Street (Philadelphia)
Broad Street is a major arterial street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is nearly 13 miles long.It is Pennsylvania Route 611 along its entire length with the exception of its northernmost part between Old York Road and Pennsylvania Route 309 and the southernmost part south of Interstate 95...
. As its fortunes improved after the war, the institution focused on its mission as a scholarly research library. In the second half of the 20th century, under the direction of Edwin Wolf, energetic programs of renewal brought the Library Company once more into a busy and vital center of national importance for research and education. The Library Company completed a new building on Locust Street, also named the Ridgeway Library, in 1965, and opened it to the public in April 1966.
Further reading
- Smith, J. J. "Notes for a History of the Library Company of Philadelphia." Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania 16 (26 September 1835): 201–08.
- "Public Library in Philadelphia." American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge 2 (November 1835): 91.
- "The Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Loganian Library." Norton's Literary Gazette 2 (15 July 1852): 127.
- Edmunds, A. J. "The First Books Imported by America's First Great Library: 1732 " Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 30 (1906): 300–308
- Abbot, G. M. A Short History of the Library Company of Philadelphia; Compiled from the Minutes, Together with Some Personal Reminiscences. Philadelphia: Published by order of the Board of Directors, 1913.
- "Early Documents of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1733–1734." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 39 (1915): 450–53.
- Gray, A. K. Benjamin Franklin's Library: A Short Account of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731–1931, Foreword by Owen Wister. New York: Macmillan, 1937.
- Packard, F. R. Charter Members of the Library Company. Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1942.
- Peterson, C. E. "The Library Hall: Home of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1790–1880." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 95 (1951): 266–85.
- Wolf, E. "The First Books and Printed Catalogues of the Library Company of Philadelphia." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 78 (1954): 45–70.
- Grimm, D. F. "A History of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731–1835." Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1955.
- Wolf, E. "The Early Buying Policy of the Library Company of Philadelphia [1735–70]." Wilson Library Bulletin 30 (1955): 316–18.
- Library Company of Philadelphia. A Catalogue of Books Belonging to the Library Company of Philadelphia: A Facsimile of the Edition of 1741 Printed by Benjamin Franklin, with an Introduction by Edwin Wolf 2nd Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia 1956
- Wolf, E. "Some Books of Early English Provenance in the Library Company of Philadelphia." Book Collector 9 (1960): 275–84.
- Korty, M. B. "Benjamin Franklin and Eighteenth Century American Libraries." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 55 (1965): 1–83.
- Wolf, E. "Library Company of Philadelphia." ELIS 15 (1975): 1–19.
- Wolf, E. "At the Instance of Benjamin Franklin"—A Brief History of The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731–1976. Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1976.
- Wolf, E. "The Library Company of Philadelphia, America's First Museum." Antiques [U.S.A.] 120 (1981): 348–60.