Benjamin Franklin Statue
From VCencylopedia
Beneath the statue of Benjamin Franklin in front of Sanders Physics the inscription in the plaque reads "Given to Vassar College by J.P. Morgan at the request of Burges Johnson, Professor of English, 1915-1926”. The story of how Franklin’s likeness came to stand here is tied to how Burges Johnson came to Vassar. In 1912, when Columbia University opened its school of journalism, funded by a generous bequest from Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the New York World, Johnson, an adviser to E.P. Dutton publishing house, was considering working there as one of the part-time faculty. He wondered, however, whether the lower salary of the Pulitzer school, – which was less than half what he made as an adviser to E.P. Dutton publishing house, – would be enough to support his wife and three children. Johnson had been asked to assemble expert witnesses for Dutton's lawsuit over whether its "Everyman's Library" volumes were actually textbooks. One of the expert witnesses he chose was Henry Noble MacCracken, a professor of English at Smith, who had formerly taught at Yale and had used Everyman titles as textbooks in both colleges.
Johnson asked MacCracken for advice on his personal problem. MacCracken dissuaded him from teaching part-time at Columbia with the rank of instructor, on the grounds that typically instructors were young men expected to do all the odd jobs, and that even if Johnson was more mature and more widely experienced than the other instructors, he would still be obligated to do the same menial work.
Shortly after this conversation, MacCracken was appointed to the presidency of Vassar and he wrote to Johnson: "If you are seriously thinking about the possibility of part-time teaching, why not come up here? We will allow you to go to New York for half the week, and we will treat you better at Vassar than Columbia would." Burges Johnson and his family moved to Poughkeepsie and he spent three days of every week in New York at his desk at Dutton's.
Before he worked at Dutton's, Burges Johnson had worked for ten years at the Harper & Brothers publishing company. The statue of Franklin had stood above the doorway of Harper and Brothers, and in his book, As much as I dare, he recalls thinking about how the statue had seen a host of great American artists and writers through the decades walk through the front door of Harper’s. Just as he started teaching at Vassar, the company moved from the old building on Franklin Square to East 33rd Street, leaving behind the statue of Benjamin Franklin "without the backing of literature and art". Instead there was a leather trade set-up inside and the stench of untanned hides filled the building. Johnson asked the new Harper offices what they were going to do about Franklin’s statue. They said that there was no room for him anywhere on East 33rd Street and that after all he was a part of the building they had left, which was now the property of J.P. Morgan & Company. Johnson suggested that the leather trade could not be greatly interested in the statue, and he asked whether Vassar might have it. They said that was a question for Mr. Morgan to settle and they would transmit with their recommendations any request Johnson cared to make. Johnson followed their suggestion and the nub of his argument was that "anyone who had read the life of Franklin would know he would rather rest on the Vassar Campus than any other place in the world."
Johnson's argument was successful in convincing J.P. Morgan to give the statue, so he had him lowered to a waiting truck and carried to Poughkeepsie. The life-size statue stood for some time just inside the doorway of his office. With the help of his students Johnson removed layer under layer of ancient paint until they revealed the pewter statue. The year Johnson left Vassar the statue was moved again, to dedicate the new Sanders Physics building. Benjamin Franklin was not only a founding father in the American Revolution, but a scientist. He was among the first to make quantitative studies of electric phenomena, and he established the convention that a glass rod that has been rubbed with silk is positively charged. Johnson was pleased about this relocation of his statue, noting, "Today he stands on a pedestal outside the physics building, gazing down benevolently, and perhaps with a hint of more personal interest, upon successive generations of Vassar girls."
Recently, the statue was tilting over, and it had to be taken down for the safety of the students and faculty.
Sources
Knight, Randall T. Physic for Scientists and Engineers
Johnson, Burges "As Much as I Dare" 1944 p. 153, 192-194
