Sold – Leaders Form the 1st Organization in the United States to Promote Business, Industry

– The signed membership list with 120 Signatories, a Civic Who’s Who, Including Two Men Known For Their Part in the Declaration of Independence: Thomas McKean, Signer, and John Nixon, The First Man to Read the Declaration Outside Independence Hall After Its Adoption

As the nation’s leaders convened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to agree upon a Constitution, Philadelphia’s civic leaders met and formed the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts. The organization’s agenda was ambitious: to begin to set the country on solid ground to compete in business and manufacture with the countries of Europe.

This was the first such organization in the United States, and it played a visionary role.  Immediately at hand, it sought to influence the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention meeting a few blocks away.  Tench Coxe was a leading voice in during this period.  He was active civically, and would later play a role in the founding of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  Coxe was also an early proponent of industrialization. On August 9, 1787, with the Constitutional Convention meeting down the road, he delivered a speech to the newly Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts explicitly referring to that convention and urging various methods for "encouraging manufactures," including "premiums for useful inventions and improvements," and "liberal rewards in land." Many believe that this appeal by Coxe influenced James Madison's proposal just two weeks later to vest Congress with the power "to encourage by proper premiums and provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries." The result was the Intellectual Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which vests Congress with power to legislate in the field of copyright and patent. Supporting the ratification of the Constitution, in Philadelphia’s Grand Federal Procession of July 4, 1788, there was a float sponsored by the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts.

The formation of this organization was noticed around the country, and it led to the establishment of similar organizations elsewhere. In 1789, New York followed suit, with New Jersey, Boston and Baltimore following in ensuing years. In Alexander Hamilton’s famous "Report on Manufactures" submitted to Congress on December 5, 1791, he specifically referenced the existence of the Pennsylvania Society, approving the concept. This Pennsylvania society was the predecessor of untold thousands of chambers of commerce and civic organizations throughout the United States. Moreover, it had as its central precept the intent to offer rewards to entice foreign inventors to our shore.  Samuel Slater, father of American industry, emigrated from England specifically to claim this award.

At the time the Society was organized in 1787, it published its founding document, a pamphlet concerning its goals and purpose entitled “The Plan of the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts.” Most of the pamphlets were circulated as imprints to be read by interested parties. However, the originals had additional pages bound in at their end, where each founding member/subscriber would sign his name and agree to pay the required contribution of 10 shillings. There were about 800 such members in all, and to manage the signing and contribution process the society divided up the city into a handful of wards, and each person living within its precincts would sign and pledge funds in the pamphlet for his ward. Four (of perhaps 5 or 6) of these signed pamphlets are known to survive, as no additional ones can be located; and 3 of these 4 are in institutions. The 4th one we offer here, and it comes to us direct from the descendants of one of the organization’s proponents, Col. Francis Gurney, who commanded the 11th Pennsylvania Regiment during the Revolution and was a business and civic leader afterwards. It is the sole signed founding document known to be in private hands.  It was acquired directly from Gurney’s descendant and has never been offered for sale before.

Member/subscribers of this copy include (in part) Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence; John Nixon, first man to read the Declaration aloud to the citizens; Francis Gurney; William Pollard, recipient of the first United States patent ever issued, for a machine that roved and spun cotton; John Nicholson, comptroller general of Pennsylvania and colleague of Robert Morris; Felix Crawford, early manufacturer; Robert Wharton, the longest-serving Mayor of Philadelphia; John Hazelwood, Commodore in the Continental Navy; University of Pennsylvania Treasurer Henry Hill; speaker of the Pennsylvania House George Latimer; Asia trade mogul Robert Ralston, who founded the Philadelphia Bible Society, the first of the kind on this continent; William Mackenzie, one of the first rare book collectors in the country; Christ Church warden Thomas Cuthbert; Philadelphia Mayor John Barclay; Levi Hollingsworth, one of the city’s most noted merchants; shipping merchants David Callaghan, Woodrop Sims, Joseph Sims, Adam Foulk, and Richard Sweetman; federal judge William Lewis; iron manufacturers Lawrence Lownes, and Samuel and David Rutter; Joseph Snowden and Andrew Bunner, who were designated signers of Continental Currency; and sea captain James Josiah. Inserted loose in the pamphlet is a pre-subscription agreement clearly predating the bound in document, signed by many of the same people, agreeing to set up such a society; this would be the earliest such document in the United States. Thomas and Joseph Wharton, noted merchants whose cousin was Governor of Pennsylvania, have signed this document though not the other.