Stone memorializing Benjamin Franklin
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Memorial Inscription
- Creator/Participating Person(s)
- Date created, installed or dedicated
- Date Modified
- Historical Period
- Funded by
- Campus Location
- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Object
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Plaque/Marker
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Franklin Benjamin
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Stone memorializing Benjamin Franklin
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The “Walk of Fame” was created in 1929 by then-president Hamilton Holt to honor significant historical figures. The memorial is located in the center of campus around Mills Lawn.
A stone memorializing Franklin was originally incorporated into the Walk of Fame in 1930 by Hamilton Holt. According to Holt's description: “When I was in Philadelphia In the winter of 1930 I located on a side street the old printing shop where Benjamin Franklin did his printing […] I went down in the cellar and found this stone on one of the cellar walls.” It is unclear if the original stone in the Walk of Fame was stolen, disappeared, or removed. The current stone was added in 2000 alongside the Benjamin Franklin Bench by donor, Philip Crosby, and President Rita Bornstein.
In his early life, Benjamin Franklin owned enslaved people, with some like Peter and King traveling with him to London in 1757. Also, as a publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he advertised slave sales and runaway slaves thus benefiting financially from this institution.
During his time in London, his view of the institution was influenced by the abolitionist movement in Britain and the 1772 Somerset case that ruled against slavery. In the 1780s, Franklin published several essays condemning slavery. By 1787 he became president of the Philadelphia Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, one of the first abolitionist organizations in America. In 1790, he petitioned Congress for the abolition of slavery and end of the slave trade.
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The monument is a relatively large rock roughly a foot in height and two feet in length, making it a rectangle-like form. The actual measurements of the stone are 30 cm in height and approximately 48 centimeters in length. The stone is a light beige greyish stone with another in the middle. In the lower right side, a chunk of the stone is missing.
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
PHILADELPHIA PA
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Holt, Hamilton Holt
Crosby, Phillip
Bornstein, Rita
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1930
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November 21, 2000
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Hamilton Holt
Crosby Philip
Position: 963 (78 views)