Penn dates its founding to 1740, when prominent evangelist George Whitefield
had the idea of building a Philadelphia charity school that would
double as a house of worship for his followers. After construction was
underway, however, the cost was seen to be much greater than the
available resources, and the project went unfinished for a decade.
The life-sized, bronze "Ben on the Bench" that sits at 37th Street and Locust Walk was sculpted by George Lundeen.
Franklin’s Vision
Then in 1749, Benjamin Franklin—printer, inventor and future founding father of the United States—published his famous essay, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth,
circulated it among Philadelphia’s leading citizens, and organized 24
trustees to form an institution of higher education based on his
proposals. The group purchased Whitefield’s “New Building” and in 1751,
opened its doors to children of the gentry and working class alike as
the Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania. Franklin served as president of the institution until 1755 and continued to serve as a trustee until his death in 1790.
Franklin’s educational aims, to train young people for leadership in
business, government and public service, were innovative for the time.
In the 1750s, the other Colonial American colleges educated young men
for the Christian ministry, but Franklin's proposed program of study was
much more like the modern liberal arts curriculum. His fellow trustees
were unwilling to implement most of his then-radical ideas though, and
Penn’s first provost, William Smith, turned the curriculum back to traditional channels soon after taking the helm from Franklin.
In addition to challenging the educational conventions of the day,
Franklin pushed boundaries that moved science and society forward and
helped shape America’s very nationhood. He was a member of the Second
Continental Congress, a drafter and signer of the Declaration of
Independence and U.S. Constitution, and played a pivotal role in
recruiting French aid for the Americans during the Revolutionary War.
Franklin later signed the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the
conflict with the British Empire.
His broad knowledge spanned multiple disciplines, and far from
regarding it as an end in itself, he saw knowledge as an asset that
required practical application to be of value. His many essential
inventions range from bifocals and the lightning rod to the iron furnace
stove and odometer.
Beyond that, the civic institutions that Franklin helped launch include the country’s first subscription library
(1731) and first hospital (1751), in addition to what would become
America’s first university, the University of Pennsylvania, in 1749.
In the years that followed, Penn went on to obtain a collegiate
charter (1755), graduate its first class (1757), establish the first
medical school in the American colonies (1765) and become the first
American institution of higher education to be named a university
(1779). In 1802, the University expanded to a new campus, but by the
1860s had outgrown even that space, so in 1872 the trustees built a new
campus in the street-car suburb of West Philadelphia.
Franklin's Influence & the Modern University
To this day, Penn’s 302-acre West Philadelphia campus reflects its
rich heritage—a heritage closely bound with the birth of the United
States—boasting more than 200 buildings and many notable landmarks,
including the nation’s first student union and first double-decker college football stadium .
The 165 research centers and institutes on campus also reflect the
University’s innovative, civic-minded and pragmatic creator: More than
250 years after Ben Franklin broke new ground in founding Penn, its
faculty, students, and alumni continue to make breakthroughs in
research, scholarship, and education. Its many subsequent “firsts,”
include the world’s first collegiate business school (Wharton, 1881), the world’s first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer (ENIAC, 1946), and the first woman president of an Ivy League institution (Judith Rodin, inaugurated in 1994) as well as the first female Ivy League president to succeed another female (Amy Gutmann, inaugurated in 2004).
From campus walkways engraved with Franklin’s words of wisdom to the University’s most important strategic initiatives such as Penn Compact 2020 and the President’s Engagement Prizes, Penn continues to educate and inspire future leaders to move our now-global society forward.
Additional information on the University of Pennsylvania’s heritage is available at the University Archives.
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