South 7th

We struggled to find a connection between Thomas Jefferson and Atwater Kent. Here’s the best we could do…

Atwater Kent purchased and restored the former Franklin Institute building at 15 S. 7th Street in 1938, saving the building from demolition. He donated it to the city to use as a museum of Philadelphia history; the city renamed it the Atwater Kent Museum. The museum remained open until 2019.

Almost directly across the street from the Atwater Kent Museum’s building at Market & 7th Streets is a reconstruction of the house that Jacob Graff built in the early 1770’s. Thomas Jefferson, as the only Southerner in the committee of five appointed by Congress to draft the Declaration of Independence, moved up from Virginia and rented 2 rooms on the 2nd floor of Graff’s house. Over the course of 17 days during the summer of 1776, Jefferson drafted the Declaration in this house, assisted by his enslaved servant Bob Hemings.

If not for being separated by about 160 years, Jefferson would have been staying across the street from Kent’s museum.

This Model L Atwater Kent Radio Speaker Horn would have had a cast iron base with a speaker driver; it was manufactured in Philadelphia, PA in the 1920’s. Siren #171 is approximately 17” tall with a 14.5” bell with its original brown label. It sits on a white oak base made from the remnants of the first reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's 1825 UVA Rotunda Delorme dome framing. These scraps were given to us by our friend and architect, Doug Harnsberger. The planks were harvested from trees on Parish Mountain in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Each Siren is signed on the bottom of the base with the siren # and name.

If your phone has stereo options you may want to play around with mono and stereo settings to see which you prefer.

This siren now resides with ceramic artist Andrew Snyder.