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City library to host national Ben Franklin exhibit
The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Library Traveling Exhibit will appear at the Mountain Home Public Library July 14-Aug. 27.
Mountain Home is one of only 40 cities in the nation where the exhibit celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin will appear. All the other locations are in or near major cities in the United States. Mountain Home is the smallest community -- by far -- to have earned the right to display the celebration of the remarkable and varied life of one of the nations most colorful and influential Founding Fathers.
The exhibit was obtained through a grant written by librarian Robin Murphy.
"This is a major coup for the library and the community of Mountain Home," noted Library Director Luise House. "But we couldn't do it without the Friends of the Library."
Because the project will require extensive manpower, the Friends of the Library agreed to take on the project. Because of funding constraints that left the library at minimal staffing levels, the ability of the library to handle the exhibit had become problematic.
"One of the reasons we took this on is because we wanted to see it happen," said Bob Roberts, treasurer of the friends group.
The Friends of the Library are a group of volunteers who work to support the library -- by raising funds to help with programs or acquire equipment, or helping provide manpower for library projects. The group meets the third Thursday of every month at the commons area in the library beginning at 11 a.m. Roberts said new members are always welcome. They can show up at the meetings or call Friends of the Library President Laurice Bentz at 587-3122 for information on how to join.
Displaying the exhibit isn't cheap, and the friends group will spend several thousand dollars of the money it has raised from fundraisers, such as used book sales, to help put on the events and activities that will coincide with the exhibit.
"Anyone who would like to donate a 'Franklin' (a $100 bill), well, it would be greatly appreciated," Roberts said.
Besides organizing the opening ceremonies, lectures on Franklin's life and times and a number of interactive activities, the friends group anticipates bringing in a performer for at least one and possibly two concerts of a rare armonica -- a musical device invented by Franklin.
The piano-like instrument uses the same principal as that found by rubbing a wet finger around the lip of a wineglass in order to produce musical tones. The instrument was all the rage in the United States and Europe at the time, and many of the world's great composers, including Mozart, composed music for it. The device faded in popularity in the mid-19th century and today there are only about a dozen Armonicas still in existence. Performances of the invention are rare.
Franklin was one of the leading scientists of his time, was one of the founders of the theory of electricity, and his list of inventions is lengthy and wide-ranging. Many are still used today, including lightning rods to protect homes and bifocal lenses.
Replicas of many of his inventions will be on display as part of the exhibit, along with interactive demonstrations of his scientific achievements that are being organized by the Friends of the Library.
"We want to have a lot of the activities for kids," Roberts said.
In addition, the library's annual American Girl Tea Party will be held during the exhibition. The Friends of the Library will be acquiring two now American Girl dolls to add to the library's collection in time for the tea.
The project will require a lot of manpower, with docents helping visitors to the exhibit understand Franklin and his times, and also helping with interactive computer workstations that will be set up. Anyone wishing to help should contact the Friends of the Library.
Franklin is the first of the Founding Fathers to turn "300." He was born on Jan. 6, 1706, under the Julian calendar in use at the time. But when Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, an 11-day adjustment was required, meaning Franklin wound up with two different birth dates, an event of which the iconoclastic and humorous Founding Father often made fun. A dutiful subject of Great Britain, however, he changed his birthdate to Jan. 17, 1706, the date most biographies list today. More than 20,000 people attended his funeral after he died on April 17, 1790.
Franklin was a tradesman, a fireman, a musician, a playboy, an inventor, a scientist, an author, a bureaucrat, a politician, a diplomat, a statesman and a philosopher. He created the first lending library in the United States. He is one of only six men whose signature appears on both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
The traveling library exhibit, "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World," gives public audiences the opportunity to explore and to talk about Franklin's life, his contributions to the founding of this country, and his high standards for work, citizenship and contribution to community.
It looks at his background, his self-education, and his philosophical and religious beliefs and their effect on his work and life.
It shows Franklin in the context of the 18th century and as a brilliant and rather unconventional product of his times, rather than the venerable bespectacled and grandfatherly figure with whom most Americans today are familiar.
The panel exhibit consists of six sections of colorful, freestanding photo-panels, incorporating representations of artifacts from the original Franklin exhibition and a text written by the curator of the original international traveling exhibition of the same title.
Exhibition content is arranged in thematic sections showing Franklin in the Boston of his youth, Franklin's family and personal life, as well as the years when he built his business as Philadelphia's premier printer.
The exhibit also looks at Franklin's commitment to public service, his interests in medicine and public health, and his work in science and philosophy.
Franklin's political career in England, France and the United States, and his contributions to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and other major documents are the subjects of the final two sections of the exhibit.
Two copies of the 1,000-square-foot traveling exhibit will circulate to public and academic library sites through July 2011. Each host library will feature the exhibit for a six-week period.
Participating libraries are required to present at least two free public programs featuring a lecture or discussion by a qualified scholar on exhibition themes. Those programs are being organized now by the Friends of the Library.
All showings of the exhibition will be free and open to the public.
The current exhibit is a reduced version of the original 8,000-square-foot exhibit, which was shown in Philadelphia for nearly a year and then went on an international tour. That exhibit included many of the original documents of the founding of the United States, as well as original inventions and personal items of Franklin obtained from museums and private collectors.
The current national touring exhibit contains high-quality replicas of many of those artifacts and documents.
The American Library Association Public Programs Office, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is sponsoring the traveling exhibition, which is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary.
The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary is an alliance created in 2000 by five Philadelphia institutions: the American Philosophical Society, The Franklin Institute Science Museum, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania. Its purpose is to celebrate the 300-year anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth in 1706, and its projects have been endorsed as the official national celebration by the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Commission, a federal advisory body.
For more information on the Tercentenary's plans, visit www.benfranklin300.org.