
University of Pennsylvania Libraries
The university library that Benjamin Franklin founded—one of the first in the country—is the only University of Pennsylvania institution to have been in continuous operation since 1750. In recent years, it has expanded its curatorial mission to present long-running, thoroughly researched exhibitions that draw on the library’s expansive archives to approach a wide range of artworks and complement the materials in its collection. In 2010, the Center funded an exhibition entitled Wharton Esherick and the Birth of the American Modern, which explored the career of Wharton Esherick, a Philadelphia native whose work forged a link between the arts and crafts movement and mid-20th-century modernism. A 2018 Center grant supports Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy, a region-wide series of cultural events designed to reassess Walt Whitman (1819–92) and his impact on art and society, on the occasion of his 200th birthday.