Franklin Institute Philadelphia, Pa Committee on Science and the Arts

The Franklin Institute was founded in Philadelphia in 1824 by the city's leading engineers, scientists, technicians and manufacturers for the purpose of promoting and advancing technical progress. In 1825 it established its Committee on Inventions under Samuel Vaughn Merrick and Alexander Dallas Bache. This was the first attempt in America to set up a permanent body to direct technical innovation.

Membership in the committee was originally limited to members of the Institute's board of managers. In 1834 Bache reorganized the committee as the Committee on Science and the Arts and opened it to all Institute members. The committee would appoint subcommittees of experts to examine and report on inventions submitted to it. It filled a purpose not met by the 19th century Patent Office, which granted patents liberally without proof of workability or priority and left questions of interference to the courts. By the 1890s the emergence of engineering professional societies, research universities and independent laboratories began to undermine the need for the Institute's program, and by 1924 it was reduced to awarding medals.

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