Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia Home Hit by Federal Budget Cuts

Federal budget cuts have temporarily shuttered Benjamin Franklin’s home and print shop in Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia. The hiring freeze on federal jobs prompted closure of the Printing Office on March 1, a park spokesperson confirmed.

The head of the union that represents workers at Independence National Historic Park alerted a Philadelphia news site to the print shop’s closure, along with that of the Declaration House, a replica of the building where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. However, Gina Gilliam of public affairs for the Independence National Historic Park clarified that Declaration House was not affected by budget cuts—that it is usually only open during summer, which is high tourist season. Gilliam said Declaration House will reopen as scheduled in June, and that once the Printing Office is staffed with seasonal employees, it is also expected to reopen in June.

In his first federal budget plan announced today, President Trump also, as expected, proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Benjamin Franklin’s print shop shares with the public his legacy as a successful owner of The Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper and a printer of currency and official forms for the colonial government in the 1720s.

Pomona College associate professor of politics Susan McWilliams, who is writing a book, The Foundations of the Founding , about the founding fathers’ connection to architecture, calls Franklin’s printing shop a “key piece of our national history.” The American founders “were obsessed with architecture, largely because they thought it was one way you could express political and civic values,” McWilliams says. “They wanted future generations of Americans—people like us—to be able to inhabit their spaces so that we could feel connected to them and to the founding.”