How Ben Franklin Came up With the Idea of Public Libraries in the 1700s

“There was not a good Bookseller’s Shop in any of the Colonies to the Southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the Printers were indeed Stationers, they sold only Paper, etc., Almanacks, Ballads, and a few common School Books. Those who lov’d Reading were oblig’d to send for their Books from England,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, recalling the state of reading materials in Philadelphia prior to 1731. Franklin, an avid reader, pondered how to right this wrong and produce access to enough expensive reading materials to satisfy himself and his friends without bankrupting them all in the process.
His first solution called for the members of the Junto, a discussion group in which Franklin was a member, to pool their personal libraries and borrow each other’s materials. They collected the books in a rented room and used them as references during their discussions. Unfortunately, the experiment didn’t last long. Some of the books were damaged, while others went missing entirely. After about a year, the respective members took their books home. Though this experiment was a failure, Franklin wasn’t deterred. He dreamed up an even more ambitious idea.
Franklin and his friends gathered subscriptions and purchased books for the new library. When the library became operational, each member was only allowed to take one book at a time. If books were returned in poor condition, the offending member paid a fine. The first surviving library catalog from 1741 shows that the library’s purchased collection was about 33 percent historical works, 20 percent literature, 20 percent science, and 10 percent theological, with the remaining works falling into various categories. The purchased works reflected the interests and needs of the library’s subscribers, a system that greatly aided the institution’s success.
Franklin believed that the library, and the ones inspired by it that were founded soon after, was key to American education. “The Institution soon manifested its Utility, was imitated by other Towns and in other Provinces, the Librarys were augmented by Donations, Reading became fashionable, and our People having no publick Amusements to divert their Attention from Study became better acquainted with Books,” he wrote.
By 1773, the library had once again outgrown its home. This time, the directors found space for the library on the second floor of Carpenter’s Hall. This proved to be a fortuitous move, for the First Continental Congress met on the first floor of Carpenter’s Hall and took advantage of the nearby reference materials. The library also served the members of the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. Therefore, until the country’s capital moved to Washington, D.C., the collection housed in Carpenter’s Hall essentially acted as the Library of Congress.
The library moved several more times as the years passed, and it now resides on Locust Street in Philadelphia. It serves as a research library, focusing on the 17th through the 19th centuries and containing many rare books and manuscripts.
In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin describes the library as “the Mother of all the North American Subscription Libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing.”
Franklin believed that his library and the ones it inspired were key to improving the intellectual lives of many Americans, even crediting them with assisting the American cause for independence. He wrote, “These Libraries have improv’d the general Conversation of the Americans, made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the colonies in Defence of their Privileges.”