Wagner Free Institute of Science

This simple classical building was built in 1859-1865 to serve the remarkable institution founded by William Wagner (1796-1885), merchant, philanthropist, and amateur scientist. He believed that the general public needed access to the discoveries that were transforming the world, and he devoted his life to providing free scientific education. This building perfectly preserves the Victorian museum and school that he created to accomplish that mission. 

Wagner retired from his lucrative business activities in 1840 and traveled in Europe, studying schools and museums and collecting biological and geological specimens. Back in Philadelphia, in 1847 he began to offer free science lectures, at first in his home, a large farmhouse located a short distance north of the present building. To accommodate growing audiences, in 1855 he obtained the use of Municipal Hall on Spring Garden Street, and at that time he also chartered his institute. When he was forced to move in 1859, he commissioned this building from the prolific John MacArthur, who would soon win the competition to design City Hall.

On the outside McArthur created an uncomplicated brick box with classical details—some made of cast iron, and, on the inside, a technologically advanced setting for modern scientific education. The ground floor contains the library, offices, and a 1500-seat lecture room modeled on that in the new Smithsonian building. This is topped by an iron framed, skylit museum, with two tiers of galleries and a roof carried by nine bowed trusses of iron and wood.

Upon Wagner’s death in 1885, the trustees turned to the eminent paleontologist Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) to be director of programs.  Leidy expanded teaching to include university-level courses, ramped up scientific research, sponsored expeditions that collected more materials, and launched a scholarly journal. He also reorganized the galleries as a "systematics" collection that portrayed Darwin's still controversial theory of evolution—creating the arrangement that we see today. 

Leidy oversaw a remodeling—really a completion--of the original building.  The brick walls were stuccoed, the round-headed windows were fully opened up and given new tracery, and interior spaces received wood paneling. This work was overseen by the firm of Edward Collins and Charles Autenrieth.

The Wagner Institute supported the founding of what became the Free Library of Philadelphia. It accommodated the library’s first branch in 1892, and in 1901 built a skylit western annex to provide the library with a space of its own. The architects were George W. Hewitt and William D. Hewitt. The branch library continued to use this space until it erected its own building in 1962.  

The Institute today continues to offer what its name proclaims: free education in science.