↑ The University officially uses 1740 as its founding date and has since 1899. The ideas and intellectual inspiration for the academic institution stem from 1749, with a pamphlet published by Benjamin Franklin, (1705/1706–1790). When Franklin's institution was established, it inhabited a schoolhouse built on November 14, 1740 for another school, which never came to practical fruition.[1] Penn archivist Mark Frazier Lloyd notes: "In 1899, UPenn's Trustees adopted a resolution that established 1740 as the founding date, but good cases may be made for 1749, when Franklin first convened the Trustees, or 1751, when the first classes were taught at the affiliated secondary school for boys, Academy of Philadelphia, or 1755, when Penn obtained its collegiate charter to add a post-secondary institution, the College of Philadelphia."[2] Princeton's library presents another, diplomatically phrased view.[3]
