The nation's oldest cultural institution "a well-kept secret" in Philadelphia

From bifocals to swim fins, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin spearheaded countless discoveries in American and world history.

One of his lesser-known innovations is still alive and well — and founded — in Philly: the Library Company of Philadelphia.

"A well-kept secret"

The Library Company of Philadelphia is the oldest cultural institution in the United States, and it was founded in the city by Franklin before America even became a country.

Tucked away in Center City, the nearly 300-year-old institution calls Locust Street home. 

"We're a well-kept secret," director John Van Horne said.

Franklin was the mastermind behind the institution.

"His signature is also on this document," Van Horne said. "This is our first institutional document, the Articles of Association from July 1731, when Franklin and his friends committed to start the library."

The library's storied history is spelled out on a table featuring a list of books members had imported, which Van Horne said created "the nucleus of this brand new library."

Van Horne calls Franklin's idea "ingenious."

"He and his leather apron men — colleagues — were looking to improve themselves, improve their community," Van Horne said. "We're very proud of the period from 1774-1800, when Philadelphia was pretty much the capital of the colonies and then the nation, when our directors made the collection available to all of the delegates, to the various Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Convention and the early federal congresses after the founding. We like to describe ourselves as the first, though, unofficial Library of Congress."

The founding father was just 25 at the time when he pooled financial resources amongst colleagues to purchase books from Europe.

"It was also a public library in the sense that people who were shareholders could still use the books, if they left a deposit for the value of the book," Van Horne said.

Some 300 years later, and some of those books are still being used.

A library on the move

The library is not in its original location. It began in Carpenters Hall in Old City, then moved to a building at 5th and Chestnut streets. In the late 19th century, it moved to South Broad Street into the building that is now the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.

"We changed our stripes again in the mid-20th century when we moved to this site on Locust Street," Van Horne said.

With that move, the library changed to a research library. Franklin's influence is hard to ignore, especially with the founding father's electrostatic machine here.

Today, only a fraction of the library's collection is on display.

"We think we have about half a million books, which are kept on five stacked floors above us," Van Horne said. "And then we probably have maybe 150,000 graphic works."

Van Horne says they're still adding to the collection.

"We've been growing for almost 300 years now, and we want to keep building on the collections where we're strong," Van Horne said.

Although the reading rooms are by appointment only, the library company hosts exhibitions that are free and open to the public.