John Alviti, Senior Curator of Collections at the Franklin Institute, will be speaking about the role which “invention and innovation” played in the work of the Institute’s Committee on Science and the Arts (CSA), as well as the work on the Committee on American Business Manufactures (trade fairs), the Committee on the Library (patents), and the Committee on The Journal of The Franklin Institute.
During its first century of activity in Philadelphia, the Institute spent a great deal of time, as well as invaluable institutional resources, investigating new inventions and technical innovations, particularly in the area of machines for production, presenting this information in its trade fairs, its medals, and its Journal. Along with machines for production, the Institute also spent a good amount of energy investigating the sources of motive power, first with steam then electricity, especially dynamos.
From their extensive collection, Mr. Alviti will be showing patent documents, patent and industry models, trade fair catalogs, photographs, and CSA case files. He will be showing artifacts from the Institute’s collections that are usually not on display — for the most part, they have not been on exhibit for a good fifty years!
Photo above courtesy of the Franklin Institute
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