Franklin Institute changes name to also honor a more recent donor

The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology - which grew out of a bequest from ol' Ben himself - announced today it's changing its name to the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, or Franklin Cummings Tech for short, in honor of the Cummings Foundation, which gave the school a $12.5 million grant in 2021.

The school is adopting the new name as it gets ready to move from its long-time building in the South End to a new home on Harrison Avenue at Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury.

The newly re-dubbed Franklin Cummings, which focuses on low-cost two-year programs for students preparing for careers in technical fields says:

Our fresh new brand captures our revitalized focus, commitment, and work to illuminate a new path in education designed for the future of our students, the future of the work that brings them opportunity, and the future of the communities they live in.

On his death in 1790, Franklin left bequests both to Boston, where he grew up, and Philadelphia, where he lived most of his adult life. Philadelphia long ago used up all of its funds, but Boston carefully shepherded its money by running a fund that gave interest-bearing loans to "young married artificers" - craftsmen just starting out in their careers. His will called for most of the money to be given to Boston for public works on the 100th anniversary of his death - but with a continuing fund used to benefit people starting out in technical trades for another 100 years after that.

The only problem: Franklin directed that the ministers of the three oldest Episcopal, Congregational and Presbyterian churches serve on a board that oversaw the money, but by 1890, the oldest Episcopal church in Boston - King's Chapel - had become Unitarian, and the minister of Old South Congregational Church wanted nothing to do with the money and there were doctrinal disputes at the time over the meaning of "Congregational" and so which church was the next oldest.

Naturally, somebody sued when Boston tried to spend some of the money. A judge ruled the only solution was to create a board of men of distinction to oversee the fund - and that board eventually got the idea of abandoning the loans and building a technical school. One of the board members, who also happened to be the president of MIT, convinced Andrew Carnegie to match the roughly $408,000 the fund had grown into, more than enough to buy land in the South End and build a school.