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Today’s inktober is about the Franklin Institute, Pennsylvania’s most visited museum and one of Philly’s top tourist destinations.

In 1824, the Franklin Institute was founded by Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating in honor of Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin Institute’s building was originally around the corner from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but the building became too small for their research, programs, and library.

In 1934, the Institute moved to its current location on the Parkway and it became one of the first museums in the world to offer a hands-on approach to learning science.

The institute has over 400,000 sq feet of exhibit space (it has 12 permanent exhibits and it hosts amazing traveling exhibits), two auditoriums, and the Tuttleman IMAX Theater. The institute houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial and it also operates the Fels Planetarium, the second oldest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere.

Side note: It’s my mom’s favorite museum and my favorite museum too. Her favorite parts are the IMAX theater, the observatory, and the exhibits they offer. I love the IMAX, the Planetarium, and the gift shop. Please go! It’s awesome.

Original drawing now available for purchase here.

Today’s inktober is about the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The Parkway Central location is the main location of the Free Library system, which has over 50 branches around the city.

Planning for the library began in 1911 and it opened for service on June 2, 1927. The Beaux-Arts building was designed by Julian Abele. The library building’s design and the adjacent Philadelphia Family Court building’s design are modeled after the Hotel de Crillon and the Hotel de la Marine on Paris’s Place de la Concorde.

The library has a map collection of over 130,000 maps and it has one of the strongest sheet music collections in the country (350,000). Its Rare Book Department has one of the world’s most renowned Charles Dickens collections and has extensive collections of illuminated manuscripts, Beatrix Potter, Edgar Allen Poe, and more.

Original drawing is now available for purchase here.

Today’s inktober is about Moore College of Art and Design. Moore is the first and only women’s college of art and design in the United States.

It was founded in 1848 by Sarah Worthington Peter as the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. The college was renamed Moore College of Art & Design in 1932. It was named after Joseph Moore, Jr., who set up a $3 million dollar endowment in memory of his parents.

Original drawing available for purchase here.

Today’s inktober is about the Academy of Natural Sciences, aka my most favorite museum when I was little.

The Academy of Natural Sciences is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812.

There are over 17 million biological specimens and hundreds of thousands of archival items in its library.

In 2011, it became affiliated with Drexel, so now its name is the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.

Side note: My favorite parts are the animal habitat dioramas, The Big Dig, and the butterfly zoo! 

Original drawing available for purchase here.

Today’s inktober is about Logan Square/Logan Circle: a large traffic circle, open space park and one of the five original planned public squares on the city grid.

In William Penn’s 1684 plan for the city, it was called Northwest Square. However, in 1825, it was renamed Logan Square after Philadelphia statesman James Logan.

In 1917, a French landscape architect named Jacques Gréber converted Logan Square into a circle similar to the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

The Swann Memorial Fountain is in the middle of the circle, and the circle is bordered by the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute, Moore College of Art and Design, and the Cathedral Basilica.

Original drawing available for purchase here.

Continuing yesterday’s story, today’s #inktober drawing is of William Penn. At the top of City Hall is a 37 foot, 27 ton bronze statue of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia. The statue was made by Alexander Milne Calder.

The Penn Statue is the tallest statue atop any building in the world. It faces Northeast towards Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown, where Penn signed a treaty with the local Native American tribe (Lenape/Delaware).

There was a “gentleman’s agreement” that forbade any building from being taller than the brim of Penn’s hat. However, that agreement was broken in 1987, when One Liberty Place was built. This break of the agreement supposedly put a curse on all local sports teams.

Original drawing available for purchase here.