Editing Benjamin Franklin (section)

===Junto and library===
[[File:Franklin - ita, 1825 - 766672 R (cropped).jpeg|thumb|''La scuola della economia e della morale'', an 1825 sketch of Franklin]]

In 1727, at age 21, Franklin formed the [[Junto (club)|Junto]], a group of "like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community." The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day; it subsequently gave rise to many organizations in Philadelphia.<ref>{{cite journal | last1  = Mumford | first1 = Michael D. | s2cid = 143550175 | year = 2002 | title = Social innovation: ten cases from Benjamin Franklin | journal = Creativity Research Journal | volume = 14 | issue = 2| pages = 253–266 | doi = 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1402_11}}</ref> The Junto was modeled after English coffeehouses that Franklin knew well and which had become the center of the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Britain.<ref>David Waldstreicher, ed.,'' A Companion to Benjamin Franklin'' (2011) p. 30.</ref>{{sfn|Lemay|2005a|pp=92–94,123}}

Reading was a great pastime of the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library, initially assembled from their own books, after Franklin wrote:

{{blockquote|A proposition was made by me that since our books were often referr'd to in our disquisitions upon the inquiries, it might be convenient for us to have them altogether where we met, that upon occasion they might be consulted; and by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we lik'd to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=Stuart A.P.|title=The library: an illustrated history|date=2009|publisher=[[Skyhorse Pub.]]|location=New York|isbn=978-1-60239-706-4|page=147|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/libraryillustrat0000murr}}</ref>}}

This did not suffice, however. Franklin conceived the idea of a [[subscription library]], which would pool the funds of the members to buy books for all to read. This was the birth of the [[Library Company of Philadelphia]], whose charter he composed in 1731.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 1006049|title = Benjamin Franklin and Eighteenth-Century American Libraries|journal = Transactions of the American Philosophical Society|volume = 55|issue = 9|pages = 1–83|last1 = Korty|first1 = Margaret Barton|year = 1965|doi = 10.2307/1006049}}</ref>