Benjamin Franklin Project Inaugural Lecture

The IIT College of Science and Letters Department of Social Sciences' Inaugural Benjamin Franklin Project Lecture, "What Made the Founders Different," was presented by Brown University Alva O. Way Professor Emeritus of History Gordon S. Wood on Thursday, March 15 in the Hermann Hall auditorium.

IIT Social Sciences Chair Christena Nippert-Eng introduces the Benjamin Franklin Project [photo credit: David Schalliol]

CSL Dean Russell Betts discusses the impact the Benjamin Franklin Project will have on the IIT Community [photo credit: David Schalliol]

IIT President John Anderson introduces Gordon Wood, the Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecturer [photo credit: David Schalliol]

Gordon Wood delivers the Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

Gordon Wood delivers the Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

Gordon Wood delivers the Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

IIT President John Anderson listens to Gordon Wood, the Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecturer [photo credit: David Schalliol]

The Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

The Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

Students ask questions following Gordon Wood's Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

Students ask questions following Gordon Wood's Benjamin Franklin Inaugural Lecture [photo credit: David Schalliol]

About Gordon Wood

Gordon S. Wood is the Alva O. Way Professor Emeritus of History at Brown University. Wood taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969.

He is the author of The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John H. Dunning Prize, and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize. In 2010 he received the National Humanities Medal. Wood is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Historian Gordon Wood Receives National Humanities Medal

About The Benjamin Franklin Project at IIT

Statesman. Scientist. Humanist. Businessman. Inventor.

As one of the United States' Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is known for his vision, his wit, his love of life, his expert knowledge in governance, science, engineering, business, education, music, and philosophy, and the treasure trove of writings, discoveries, inventions, and ideas that he left behind.

In partnership with the Jack Miller Center and with the generous support of The Brinson Foundation, the College of Science and Letters and the Department of Social Sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) have launched the Benjamin Franklin Project to inspire a new generation of innovators who wish to think—and act—across today's disciplinary and professional lines.

Through a series of events and special courses taught at the IIT campus, the Benjamin Franklin Project allows students and scholars to explore the full range of the Founders' work—from their most practical domestic devices to the extraordinary idea and architecture of the New Republic. The Project focuses especially on the Enlightenment and the Framers as scientists, inventors and designers in both the social and the natural realms, exploring how all these elements continue to spark imaginations and shape priorities in today's far more interconnected world.

The inaugural Benjamin Franklin Project Lecture was delivered by renowned scholar Gordon Wood (Brown University) on March 15, 2012. The first Jack Miller Post-Doctoral Fellow will take up residency in the Department of Social Sciences and begin teaching in August of 2012.

Benjamin Franklin Image: Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky, Benjamin West c. 1816 [src: http://www.philamuseum.org]