Franklin School

“Designed by Adolf Cluss, Franklin opened in 1869. and its fourteen classrooms became a laboratory and model for the the city’s new public school system. The massive Great Hall at Franklin (originally designed to seat up to 1,000 people) – with its once handsome murals mirroring the building’s exterior decoration – functioned as a community resource for concerts, exhibitions, and public meetings. Alexander Graham Bell successfully tested his new invention, the “photophone” (sound transmitted by light waves), from the rooftop of Franklin School in 1880. The building’s 19th-century façade – including a bust of Benjamin Franklin – is an eloquent expression of the principles and importance of public education in a democracy in post-Civil War America. The interior, one of only thirteen DC buildings given interior landmark protection, remains largely the way it was when the building was closed decades ago. Franklin School was considered so important in the 1870s that a model of the building was sent to international expositions in Vienna, Paris, and Philadelphia. The British, Nicaraguan, and Argentine governments requested plans of the building to study as they developed public school systems, and Congressmen sent copies of its plans to their home districts.”