A Short History Of The Library Company Of Philadelphia

Author : George Maurice Abbot
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330911006
Total Pages : 56 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (11 download)

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Download or read book A Short History of the Library Company of Philadelphia Compiled (Classic Reprint) written by George Maurice Abbot and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Short History of the Library Company of Philadelphia Compiled The beginning of the Library Company of Philadelphia was largely owing to the "Junto," a club founded by Benjamin Franklin for literary and scientific discussion, the reading of original essays, poems, and so forth, called a "Club of Mutual Improvement." Franklin says in his autobiography: - "About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, but in a little room of Mr. Grace's set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by me, that since our books were often referr'd to in our disquisitions upon the queries, it might be convenient for us to have them together where we met, that upon occasions they might be consulted; and by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should while we lik'd it keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole. It was lik'd and agreed to, and we fill'd one end of the room with such books as we could best spare. The number was not so great as we expected; and tho' they had been of great use, yet some inconvenience occuring for want of due care of them, the collection, after about a year, was separated, and each took his books home again. And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends of the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous." The Instrument of Association was dated July 1, 1731, and between that date and 1742, when they obtained their second charter, eighty-five signed the Articles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.