This exhibition, featuring almost sixty items, indicates the depth and breadth of Benjamin Franklin's public, professional, and scientific accomplishments through important documents, letters, books, broadsides, and cartoons. Sections of the exhibit focus on Franklin's successful diplomatic career as well as his accomplishments as a scientist and inventor, and as a printer and writer.

Following from Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library became the core of the Library of Congress, this exhibit arranges selected current holdings into categories corresponding to Francis Bacon’s three faculties of the mind: Memory (History), Reason (Philosophy), and Imagination (Fine Arts). Franklin-related items include:

• Franklin on Electricity
  In a document that is more a draft scientific report than a letter, Benjamin Franklin writes to Dutch physician and scientist Jan Ingenhousz about electricity and the Leyden jar, an early form of electrical condenser.
• "Original Rough Draught" of the Declaration of Independence
  The "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence shows revisions by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to Thomas Jefferson's original handwritten text.
• Poor Richard Illustrated
  The enduring popularity of Poor Richard's Almanac is emphasized in this print published nearly seventy years after Franklin's death.

This exhibition highlights books that had a profound effect on American life and in shaping the nation, as a way to spark a national conversation. Franklin-related items include:

• Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751)
  In 1751, Peter Collinson, president of the Royal Society, arranged for the publication of a series of letters from Benjamin Franklin describing his experiments with electricity. Through the publication of these experiments, Franklin became the first American to gain an international reputation for his scientific work.
• Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard Improved (1732) and The Way to Wealth (1785)
  As a writer, Benjamin Franklin was best known for the wit and wisdom he shared with the readers of his popular almanac, Poor Richard, under the pseudonym “Richard Saunders.” In 1758, Franklin created a clever preface that repeated a number of his maxims from earlier almanacs Reprinted as Father Abraham’s Speech and The Way to Wealth, this piece has been widely translated into many languages and is extensively reprinted.
• Benjamin Franklin, The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. (1793)
  This first English edition of Franklin's Autobiography, a retranslation of the 1791 French edition, was published in London in 1793. A masterpiece of wit and style, Franklin’s autobiography has been reprinted innumerable times and still is considered one of the most influential memoirs in American literature.

Imagination and vision played critical roles in the creative act of forming a self-governing United States of America. This exhibition explores how the founding documents that emerged from this period were forged out of insight, invention, and creativity, as well as collaboration and much compromise. Franklin's significant contributions are profiled throughout the exhibit:

• Benjamin Franklin’s Idea for National Confederation
• “Join, or Die”
• Franklin Claims Opposition to Stamp Act
• Franklin Flip-Flops on Stamp Act
• Franklin on Slavery
• Declaration of Independence Rough Draft
• Benjamin Franklin Voices American Defiance
• Signing the Declaration
• The Assumed Plan
• Preliminary Articles of Peace
• Benjamin Franklin’s Proposed Plan of Confederation, 1775
• Fear of Wasting George Washington’s Political Capital
• Convention Rejects Franklin’s Proposed Daily Prayer
• Franklin Soothes Anger
• “Monarchy or a Republic?”

This exhibition includes a timeline, an essay on the drafting of the documents, and related documents and prints. Benjamin Franklin's contributions can be found in Thomas Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, which contains revisions by Franklin and John Adams. The exhibit also includes an 1876 lithograph of the "Declaration Committee" that shows Benjamin Franklin working along side Jefferson, Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.

This special presentation honors Wilbur and Orville Wrights' achievement of flight in 1903 by exploring how the notion of flight has created inspiration across times and cultures. The first manned balloon flight on November 21, 1783, lasted twenty-five minutes and landed about five-and-one-half miles from the Paris site where it started. Among the spectators was Benjamin Franklin, who wrote about the flight in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks.

Starting with The Bay Psalm Book of 1640, this exhibit follows the spread of printing in the earliest years of British North America, as it evolved from a colonial necessity to the clarion of freedom. Benjamin Franklin's significant contribution to printing history is featured in two exhibit sections:

• Young Franklin in Boston
• Franklin as Colonial Printer

This exhibition explores the role religion played in the founding of the American colonies, in the shaping of early American life and politics, and in forming the American Republic. Included is a copy of Benjamin Franklin's speech to the Constitutional Convention requesting that the convention begin each days' session with prayers. Also contains Franklin's original proposal for the Seal for the United States that adapted the biblical story of the parting of the Red Sea.

Presented here is a copy of Thomas Jefferson's and Benjamin Franklin's plan for the Great Seal from 1776. Although Congress rejected the elaborate seal, it did retain the words "E Pluribus Unum," which became the country's motto.

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts. His accomplishments as scientist, publisher, and statesman are particularly remarkable when considered in the context of colonial North America, which lacked the cultural and commercial institutions to nourish original ideas. A spirit of pragmatic innovation imbued all of Franklin's intellectual, social, and scientific pursuits. He dedicated himself to the improvement of everyday life for the largest number of people and, in so doing, made an indelible mark on the emerging nation.

On February 6, 1778, France and the fledgling United States of America signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in Paris, France. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the United States as an independent nation and promoted trade between France and the United States. Benjamin Franklin was one of the diplomats who negotiated the Treaty.

The Continental Congress ratified preliminary articles of peace ending the Revolutionary War with Great Britain on April 15, 1783. International intrigue and intense negotiation preceded the formulation of these preliminary articles. Franklin was one of the representatives of the United States in the negotiations.

On May 9, 1754, "Join, or Die", considered the first American political cartoon, was printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette. The impetus for the cartoon, which is believed to have been devised by Benjamin Franklin, was concern about increasing French pressure along the western frontier of the colonies.

On November 14, 1732, the Library Company of Philadelphia signed a contract with its first librarian. Founded by Benjamin Franklin and friends in November 1731, the library enrolled members for a fee of 40 shillings but had to wait for its books to arrive from England before beginning full operation.

J. A. Leo Lemay presents a lecture on Benjamin Franklin in a 2006 program sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office, Manuscript Division, Center for the Book and Publishing Office. His presentation was based on a compilation of the sources for his projected seven-volume biography of Franklin.

Jonathan Lyons discusses his book The Society for Useful Knowledge: How Benjamin Franklin and Friends Brought the Enlightenment to America, analyzing how Benjamin Franklin and his circle helped to shape the history of science and technology in early America. Lyons argues that a knowledge revolution set the stage for American independence.

In 2010 the Libraryof Congress's European Division sponsored a conference exploring the intellectual relationship between Benjamin Franklin and Italian enlightenment philosopher Gaetano Filangieri, author of The Science of Legislation. Though the two never met, they corresponded from 1782 to 1787 on issues surrounding constitutional law and the the drafting of constitutions.