The 55-year-old Talbott, a longtime independent curator, is not a Franklin scholar, but an expert on colonial furniture. So it may be no accident that the greatest revelation of the show, “Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World,” is likely to be the insight it affords into his material possessions: a set of mahogany English Rococo chairs made by French craftsmen, a delicate French porcelain tea service with a Chantilly Sprig pattern, a silver marrow spoon with a family crest, a music stand that may have been designed by Franklin himself.

The exhibition as a whole stresses Franklin’s idealism, including his fervor for scientific experimentation and civic improvement. But Talbott sees no real contradiction between Franklin the idealist and Franklin the committed materialist. “He doesn’t say it’s bad to spend money,” she says, alluding to his famous essay, “The Way to Wealth.” “He says it’s bad to spend money foolishly.”

The timed-ticketed exhibition at the National Constitution Center, which opened December 13 and runs through April 30, is the centerpiece of Philadelphia’s ambitious year-long Ben Franklin 300 celebration. The celebration will include live performances, museum shows, symposia, tours—and 300 parties slated for January 13 through January 17 (Franklin’s actual birthday).

“Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World” is a project of the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, a nonprofit consortium composed of the University and two other organizations that trace their founding to Franklin—the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society—along with the Franklin Institute and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The lead funder, to the tune of $4 million, is the Pew Charitable Trusts. After Philadelphia, the exhibition will travel to St. Louis, Houston, Denver, and Atlanta, before ending its run (in revised form) in 2008 at two Paris museums.

“In our genre—the history museum—there aren’t many blockbusters,” says Richard Stengel, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. “This is really one of them. Benjamin Franklin is a great brand, one of the greatest brands in American history. And it’s perfectly and wonderfully mission-related for us. The show is really about his civic engagement—and that’s one of the things that we preach.”

The 8,000-square-foot show has more than 250 objects from 76 lenders, including about 30 from Penn. But it also includes evocations of Franklin’s home and work environments, computer interactives and other hands-on activities for children, video animations that relate anecdotes about his life, and images of Franklin in popular culture.

In November, about a month before the show is set to open, Talbott walks a visitor through galleries still under construction, explaining a layout that she promises will be dense with activities. The exhibition, translated into both French and Spanish, focuses on the dazzling multiplicity of Franklin’s personae. It is both chronological and thematic—with sections highlighting Franklin’s overlapping careers as a printer, civic leader, scientist, and diplomat. Visitors will likely emerge awed at his versatility—and, Talbott says, at his sense of humor. “They will see that he was a person capable of laughing at himself.”

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