Art science, and patronage in early Philadelphia - Pennsylvania

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 1999 by Jack L. Lindsey

During the first half of the eighteenth century Philadelphia became the intellectual and cultural center of the American colonies. It also emerged as the fastest growing mercantile center, benefiting from exports of its rich agricultural commodities to Europe and the West Indies. The city's elite merchant class embraced the intellectual interests, recreations, and latest fashions from England and the Continent.(1)

Upon his arrival in 1682 William Penn (1644-1718) had sought to establish a society based on religious diversity, liberty, and personal opportunity. His vision tested many of the political, philosophical, and aesthetic theories of the early Enlightenment. In his town plan for Philadelphia, for example, he tried to incorporate lessons learned from the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the problems of overcrowding and disease in continental cities. He decreed an open and symmetrical plot, large lots, and parklike greens for public use. His multilingual tracts enticed like-minded immigrant investors, merchants, craftsmen, and laborers essential to the colony's success.(2)

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the repeated political conflicts in late-seventeenth-century Europe increased the number of potential immigrants. In 1719 the prominent Philadelphia merchant John Dickinson (d. 1729) noted that the city's port was full of ships

from London which bring over Palatines, in number about six or seven hundred.... Some few came from Ireland lately and more and expected thence. This is besides our common supply from Wales and England.(3)

The cross-fertilization between the craftsmanship of skilled immigrants and the sophisticated taste of the merchant class led to direct adaptations of the latest styles in the decorative arts from abroad during the first half of the eighteenth century. By 1743 Benjamin Franklin observed with confidence:

The first drudgery of settling new colonies is now pretty well over 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.(4)

Penn, and later Franklin, were joined in these pursuits by Philadelphia's other early immigrant and native-born intellectual and cultural leaders, who included the German mystic Johann Kelpius [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VIII OMITTED], the English physician, philosopher, and clockmaker Christopher Witt [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE X OMITTED], the German lawyer and land agent Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651-c. 1720), Penn's personal secretary James Logan [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE XV OMITTED], the botanist John Bartram (1699-1777), the physician and amateur architect John Kearsley (1684 -1772), and the physician Thomas Cadwalader (c. 1707-1799). Their intellectual pursuits and encouragement of the younger generation greatly advanced the cultural vibrancy of the city and its international reputation.

The Junto, founded in 1727 by Franklin to widen the cultural and intellectual horizons of promising craftsmen and apprentices, presented papers on scientific discoveries, history, and morality during its meetings. The international correspondence and contacts maintained by its members including Logan, Franklin, Bartram, and their circle were important conduits for the transmission of fashions and tastes from abroad. All three were regular correspondents of the Royal Society in London,s which served as an international clearinghouse for discoveries and research in science, philosophy, and the arts. Several prominent and influential English members of the society supported the pursuits of their Philadelphia colleagues with funds, introductions, and gifts, such as classical relics and scientific curiosities. This joint stimulus was pivotal in the establishment of the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731 [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE I OMITTED], the American Philosophical Society in 1743, and the College of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Hospital [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IX OMITTED], both in 1751.

The civilizations of classical Greece and Rome provided important models on both sides of the Atlantic. The sons of the elite were tutored in Latin and Greek and encouraged to read the classics. Franklin frequently paraphrased classical texts and the English classics by authors such as Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731). Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, first published in 1732, sold in editions as large as ten thousand and included discussions of classical subjects and the glories of ancient civilizations.

Philadelphia's early Quaker leadership wrestled with the growing worldliness, ostentation, and materialism around them. Their regular and concentrated efforts to discourage personal and domestic extravagance among Quakers and the wider population inspired many philosophical debates in the colonial city. In 1698 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Women Friends recommended

That no superfluous furniture be in your houses, as great fringes about your valances, and double valances, and double curtains, and many like needless things; which the Truth maketh manifest to the humble minded.(6)