Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
| Benjamin Franklin National Memorial | |
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The monument in 2007
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| Location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Visitors | 171,033 (in 2009) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | Benjamin Franklin Memorial |
| Designated | October 25, 1972 |
The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, located in the rotunda of The Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., features a colossal statue of a seated Benjamin Franklin, American writer, inventor, and statesman. The 20-foot (6.1 m)-tall memorial, was sculpted by James Earle Fraser between 1906 and 1911 and dedicated in 1938. With a weight of 30 short tons (27 t) the statue rests on a 92-short-ton (83 t) pedestal of white Seravezza marble. It is the focal piece of the Memorial Hall of the Franklin Institute, which was designed by John Windrim and modeled after the Roman Pantheon. The statue and Memorial Hall were designated as the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in 1972. It is the primary location memorializing Benjamin Franklin in the U.S.
Congress designated the national memorial on October 25, 1972 (Public Law 92-551). Unlike most national memorials, the statue is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The national memorial is an affiliated area of the National Park Service, assigned to Independence National Historical Park through a Memorandum of Agreement entered into on November 6, 1973. Under terms of the agreement, the Institute owns and maintains the publicly accessible memorial, and the Park Service includes the memorial in official publications and otherwise cooperates with the Institute in all appropriate and mutually agreeable ways on behalf of the memorial.
Public Law 109-153 (December 30, 2005) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to make available to the Institute up to $10,000,000 in matching grants for the rehabilitation of the memorial and for the development of related exhibits. This appropriation commemorates the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth on January 17, 1706.
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