America’s first circulating museum: The object collection of the library company of Philadelphia

ABSTRACT The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, is known to have held non-book objects. What has gone unnoticed is that the institution’s directors circulated those objects to Library Company members, thus extending the principles of the subscription library to non-book objects. By exploring the origins and early years of what was, in effect, America’s first circulating museum, this study argues that the Library Company’s non-book collection functioned as a means of facilitating self-improvement and social refinement for colonial Americans.