Recipient
Library Company of Philadelphia
Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, The Library Company of Philadelphia is America's oldest cultural institution and was once the largest public library in America, until the Civil War. Its mission is to foster scholarship in and increase public understanding of American history before 1900 by preserving, interpreting, and making available its non-circulating collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, prints, photographs, and works of art.