Benjamin Franklin’s first known piece of printing was a broadside of an elegy for a Philadelphia poet and printer named Aquila Rose. That copy is being displayed at the school’s Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center starting Tuesday, in honor of Franklin’s 311th birthday. “It’s quite something to see,” said Mitch Fraas, curator of special collections at Penn Libraries. The Penn Libraries began in 1750 with a gift from Franklin, Fraas said. Although the focus has been on the broadside, Hazard’s scrapbook also has “huge research potential,” Fraas said.

Source: Washington Post January 17, 2017 18:58 UTC