American Philosophical Society

This is taken from the American Philosophical Society website, both the website and the about page URLs are listed below.

Launching an Inspired Idea 

"The first drudgery of settling new colonies is now pretty well over," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1743, "and there are many in every province in circumstances that set them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts, and improve the common stock of knowledge." The scholarly society he advocated became a reality that year. By 1769 international acclaim for its accomplishments assured its permanence. Franklin's influence and the needs of American settlements led the Society in its early days to pursue equally "all philosophical Experiments that let Light into the Nature of Things, tend to increase the Power of Man over Matter, and multiply the Conveniencies or Pleasures of Life." Early members included doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and merchants interested in science, and also many learned artisans and tradesmen like Franklin. Many founders of the republic were members: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, James Madison, and John Marshall; as were many distinguished foreigners: Lafayette, von Steuben, Kosciusko.

Yes, that is a statue of Ben Franklin looking ever so stately in the outcove of The Fifth Street façade, Library Hall of the American Philosophical Society

Here is a closer view of him

http://www.amphilsoc.org/

http://www.amphilsoc.org/about