Franklin’s Famous Founded Philadelphia Faction: The American Philosophical Society

By Ryan Murphy

The logo of the American Philosophical Society

"The Provincials [are] sufficient to work our Boats, drive our Waggons, and fell our Trees, and do the
Work that in inhabited Countrys are performed by Peasants."

Colonel James Robertson, a British Army Officer during the French and Indian War said this about the
provincials (Americans). Colonial Americans were widely regarded as heathens with little culture or
intelligence by the British and French alike. Britain and France were the cultural and scientific centers of
the world, while their colonies were severely looked down upon. Another British army officer, General
James Wolfe had this to say about the colonial Americans: “The Americans are in general the dirtiest,
most contemptible cowardly dogs that you can conceive.” He said this at a time when British troops were
fighting alongside Americans against the French. The reputation of Americans as savage woodsmen
began to change once Benjamin Franklin contributed to the culture of a new nation.

In 1743, Benjamin Franklin founded a discussion group in Philadelphia known as the American
Philosophical Society (APS). Franklin was relatively old, 37, when he founded the APS considering he
was a mere 21 years of age when he founded a group called Junto. Like the American Philosophical
Society, Junto also aimed to improve life and distribute knowledge for the benefit of all living in the
thirteen British colonies. The name of the American Philosophical Society can be deceptive because it
refers to philosophy in the sense of natural philosophy, which is now called natural science (physics,
astronomy, biology, etc.). While natural philosophy was one of the major focuses, Franklin encouraged
research and experiments in a variety of fields including both the humanities and various sciences. The
word philosophy means “love of wisdom” based on its Latin roots and this is surely what Ben Franklin
was striving for with the creation of this well-respected learned society. According to Howard Goodman
of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “high-powered thinking has been aim of [the] group since Franklin and
friends founded it in 1743 for ‘promoting useful knowledge’ ”

Franklin called for the “Center of the Society” to be Philadelphia because it was “the city nearest
the Center of the Continent-Colonies” (Franklin 1768). He was able to recruit an impressive array of
brilliant men and women including many future presidents to become members of his Philadelphian
Society, but now is not the time to name drop. This established Pennsylvania as a fertile ground for
sharing and discovering useful information. The use of Philadelphia as a hub of intellect planted the
seeds of a nation. This led to the birth of the United States in Philadelphia, the city that would go on to
become a temporary capital of the US and the location of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But now is the time to begin our tale of knowledge, preservation, significance, and the American
Philosophical Society.

A statue of Benjamin Franklin that overlooks an entrance to Library Hall, one of three buildings on the
APS grounds in Philadelphia.

The American Philosophical Society established the United States as a viable center for research and
thought. The Royal Society in England was one of the premiere learned societies in existence, but with
the rise of the APS and the formation of the United States, the Kingdom of Great Britain quickly realized
that the United States would begin to compete academically, economically, and politically with their
former colonizer. The APS proved to the rest of the world that the American colonies and the United
States of America was an intelligent nation that could compete with and assist any country’s intellectuals.
It also specifically established Pennsylvania and Philadelphia as centers of knowledge in the United
States. The best way to begin competing was to recruit members that were well respected all over the
world for their work.

Within years of the American Philosophical Society’s founding, its members were already using letters to
contribute from locations all over the colonies. The central location of Pennsylvania in the colonies was
crucial to ensuring timely delivery of letters to and from the APS. These letters were read during
meetings which were held in Philadelphia; if members wished to attend, they had to travel to at their own
expense. The American Philosophical Society has published and reported on a wider variety of topics
than any other learned society. One of the first projects that the APS undertook was the observation of
the transit of Venus to discern a great deal of astronomical data. The results were first published by the
Royal Society and later in the first edition of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.
This immediately solidified the Society’s reputation as an elite group of researchers. The topics covered
by the members of the Society are diverse enough to include farming, cartography, philosophy, fauna, and
flora.

The APS publications gained notoriety because they contain writings from some of the most famous
people throughout history. Franklin was able to attract numerous talented minds to the APS. (Let the
name dropping begin)Some of the early APS members were Thomas Paine, John Quincy Adams, John
Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. While this list is impressive, it does
not even include some of the well known intellects that would later become members including Theodore
Roosevelt, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Robert Frost, Albert Einstein and Stephen
Hawking. The current members nominate and elect new members to the Society in April of each year.
The Society’s members are as diverse as its interests. (for a full list of the APS’s subdivisions of members
visit http://www.amphilsoc.org/members/classsubdiv) Michael Doyle, a professor at Columbia
University and an APS member states, “[the American Philosophical Society] is also one of the few
academic societies that not only tries but succeeds in speaking across the disciplines.” The authors,
scientists, farmers, and politicians of the APS record any and all useful information that they discover.
These members established a legacy for the American Philosophical Society that ensured it would remain
relevant centuries into the future, but Franklin was unsure whether the Society itself would remain active
for that long. Franklin noted that some of the members of the society were “very idle gentlemen” with
regards to the APS.

As Franklin could have predicted, the Society became idle in 1746. Perhaps the members were busy
tending to their families or conducting more personal research that would not have aided others. After
about a twenty year hiatus, the Society united with the American Society for Promoting Useful
Knowledge. The APS’s name officially changed to the American Philosophical Society Held at
Philadelphia for Promoting useful knowledge, which remains its full name today. The groups merged
only three years after the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge was created. The formation
of this group spurred some of the members of the APS to reengage in the dissemination of their findings
and observations with the help of a learned society.
An early picture of Philosophical Hall located in Philadelphia

The society remained strong until no new members were elected from 1776-1778 due to the American
Revolution. In 1779, the Society elected 5 new members; 2 of those inductees came from France,
including Conrad Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval, a French diplomat. He and Franklin worked together
the previous year on the signing of two treaties to insure both a military and an economic alliance
between France and the currently forming United States of America. John Adams was one of the early
writers of these treaties, which were officially passed in 1778. While the American Philosophical Society
did not officially contribute to the treaties the Society served as a forum for connections to be made that
would benefit all of humanity in the future. Rare is the occurrence when the meeting of the most brilliant
minds leads to danger or the devolution of humanity. The meetings of the members of the APS became
evermore important during the time after the American Revolution.

As previously mentioned, George Washington was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Washington was elected in 1780 to the APS. He went on to become the first United States President a
short 9 years after becoming a member. However, Washington was certainly not the only future US
President in the Society. The American Philosophical Society elected John Adams the same year as
George Washington. 1780 turned out to be a year the Society elected people destined to be celebrated
future politicians, because it also saw the election of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During
Thomas Jefferson’s time as president of the country, he was also the President of the American
Philosophical Society. He was president of the APS from 1797-1815, while he was President of the entire
nation from 1801-1809. During his tenure, Jefferson encouraged members of the APS to prepare
scientific instructions to be sent with Lewis and Clark on their expedition. The fact the even the President
of the United States of America desired to remain active in the society certainly clarifies the APS’s
importance to the country as a whole.

While the findings and advancements presented before the Society build upon other research reported by
the Society, the APS does not receive recognition for the myriad developments it has been able to share
with the world, which means that the accomplishments of its members under its guidance never fully
divulge the APS’s crucial support. As Lily Kay, a Smithsonian Fellow at the National Museum of
American History in Washington, D.C., stated it “The legacy of the American Philosophical Society in
furthering knowledge has continued in the twentieth century through scientific meetings and
interdisciplinary symposia, through publications, exhibits, the Library, and scholarly research.”

The American Philosophical Society is just that, a society, which means that it was used to share ideas so
that many people could benefit from the discoveries of few. These meetings were all carefully
documented and the APS began publishing Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1771.
The early publications included papers read at meetings as well as APS election results, deaths, and other
Society activities. Transactions is currently published five times per year and includes only the finest
manuscripts that pass the American Philosophical Society’s Committee on Publications.

There have been thousands upon thousands of discoveries published in the Transactions, one of the
official publications of the APS. Transactions was first printed in 1771 and has a reputation for quality
that is worthy of the American Philosophical Society. Among the other publications of the APS is
Proceedings which is published four times per year and contains papers from members that are read at the
biannual meetings. The publications are presided over by the Committee on Publications at the APS.
Each manuscript that is sent for review is carefully analyzed by scholars to ensure that only the best
papers are being published.
An original copy of the first volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

Another important aspect of the APS is the fellowships and grants it offers to scholars in many fields.
The APS currently maintains seven programs. The amount of funding in each program varies from
$1,000 to $40,000 per accepted applicant. There are specific grants for researching “exploratory field
studies for the collection of specimen” (Lewis and Clark Fund) as well as broader research grants
(Franklin Research Grants). In 2009, recipients of the Franklin Research grant submitted a variety of
finished works including Painting as Medicine in Seventeenth-Century Rome and Hunger and
Environmental Destruction in Brazil's Forgotten Ethanol Boom, 1971–1990. The fellowships and grants
given are just as diverse as the rest of the APS, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.

The Society must continue to elect the finest minds in order to keep its reputation as one of the finest
learned societies in existence. On April 24th, 2010, the American Philosophical Society elected 38 new
members to its ranks, the most well-known amongst them being Woody Allen, the long time Hollywood
entertainer (more name dropping, sorry). One of the other members inducted was a University of
Chicago Professor named Geoffrey R. Stone. Professor Stone is a leading authority on Free Speech
issues and has published numerous publications related to civil rights and according to the APS member
who nominated him for election, “has a gift for elucidating seemingly intractable legal controversies,
from government secrecy to gay marriage.” Election into the APS is an outstanding accomplishment
because in the words of Professor Stone, “Organizations like the American Philosophical Society are
especially able to break down the boundaries of the disciplines” which “produces greater insight and
understanding than would be possible in more traditional forms of disciplinary deliberation.”
The American Philosophical Society Library plays host to content that is as varied as the other
components of the Society. According to the American Philosophical Society, their library “houses over
350,000 volumes and bound periodicals, eleven million manuscripts, 250,000 images, and thousands of
hours of audio tape.” Some of the highlights of the collection include first editions of Darwin’s Origin of
Species and Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathmatica, which includes Newton’s Laws of Motion.
According to the University of Toronto’s J M Steele, Principia is “justly regarded as one of the most
important works in the history of science.” These two works are nowhere near the only interesting works
housed in the APS library. One of the perks of being a society founded by Benjamin Franklin is that they
ended up with the majority of his personal library. The APS library can be accessed for scholarly
research and remains a cultural center due to the preservation of its unique collections and manuscripts.

An image of the early meeting room meeting room of the APS in Philosophical Hall in Philadelphia

One way the APS Library highlights some of its fascinating content is through exhibitions in the
American Philosophical Society Museum. The Museum is relatively young when compared to the
Society itself. Formed in 2001 and located on the APS campus in Philosophical Hall, the APS museum is
a way that the society can share its treasures with the general public that otherwise would not be able to
The Summer 2010 exhibit is called “Dialogues with Darwin” and features a array of key components
from Charles Darwin’s work, including the original title page of Origin of Species. The newly created
Museum surely will have many more exhibits in the future to highlight the myriad pieces of history that
the APS library has collected over the years.
The Library’s historic collection is a testament to the good that the Society has done since its creation. It
has proven America’s intelligence and wisdom to those inside and out of this nation’s borders. The
Society’s influence has been felt across the world and especially in Pennsylvania. The APS established
Pennsylvania as the central location for a period sometimes called the American Enlightenment. The
reputation of the Society has been upheld by the newly elected members for more than 250 years. The
question is who is the next great member of the American Philosophical Society going to be?

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