A Serpentine Sculpture Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Join, or Die’ Call for Unity Is Taking Shape—Segment by Segment—in Philadelphia

Created by John Collins, the 46-foot-long granite artwork inspired by an 18th-century political cartoon is slated to be unveiled on Independence Mall sometime this fall

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

August 5, 2026 10:16 a.m.

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A sculpture inspired by an iconic political cartoon is taking shape in Philadelphia.

Artist John Collins is creating a large-scale, three-dimensional version of Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 “Join, or Die” illustration, reports Philadelphia Inquirer’s Morgan Ritter. The 46-foot-long granite artwork is slated to be unveiled on Independence Mall, part of the National Park Service-managed Independence National Historical Park, sometime this fall.

The interactive monument is being installed on the ground on the mall’s Liberty Bell Center Block, not far from where officials recently buried a 900-pound time capsule in honor of America’s 250th birthday.

“I thought it was a great idea to have that on the mall because it’s considered the first political cartoon in the country, before we were a country, in 1754,” Collins tells the Inquirer. “I thought interpreting that into a large sculptural work that still has a playful element to it, that the mall is really lacking in, would be a great addition.”

The nonprofit Independence Historical Trust, the park’s philanthropic partner, has raised most of the roughly $3.9 million needed for the project through funding from the state of Pennsylvania, the city of Philadelphia, private foundations, legacy groups and individual donors. The group is now working to secure the remaining $600,000 needed for installation.

“The sculpture will create a new civic destination in the heart of historic Philadelphia, inviting residents and visitors alike to engage with one of America’s most enduring symbols,” Jonathan Burton, the trust’s director of development, tells the Inquirer. “It will strengthen Philadelphia’s reputation as a city where history is not simply preserved but experienced, inspiring new conversations about the values that continue to shape our nation.”

Franklin published “Join, or Die” in his Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper on May 9, 1754, at the onset of the French and Indian War. Made from a woodcut, it showed a snake divided into eight segments, above the words “JOIN, or DIE.” The segments were labeled with initials representing the American colonies, which were still under British rule.

At the time, Franklin was preparing to attend the Albany Congress, a meeting of colonial leaders convened to address threats from the French and to work on a treaty proposal with the Iroquois Confederacy.

The cartoon accompanied an editorial Franklin wrote about a recent colonial military loss to French forces, who, he argued, “with impunity violate the most solemn treaties subsisting between the two crowns, kill, seize and imprison our traders, and confiscate their effects at pleasure (as they have done for several years past), murder and scalp our farmers, with their wives and children, and take an easy possession of such parts of the British territory as they find most convenient for them.”

Why did they get away with it?

“The confidence of the French in this undertaking seems well-grounded on the present disunited state of the British Colonies, and the extreme difficulty of bringing so many different governments and assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual measures for our common defense and security,” Franklin wrote.

The cartoon put it even more plainly. The message to unite against a common enemy resonated, and both the article and the cartoon began appearing in other colonial newspapers, according to the National Constitution Center.

“The emblematic image gained considerable attention as the Albany Congress approached,” according to the center.

Franklin probably did not carve the woodcut with his own hands, the center notes. And it likely wasn’t a totally original idea, either. The image of a snake in two pieces appeared in a French book in 1685, alongside the words “se rejoindre ou mourir” (will join or die). The center notes that Franklin might also have taken inspiration from English naturalist Mark Catesby’s drawings of rattlesnakes.

Regardless, the image became “one of the most famous cartoons in history,” according to the center. “Join, or Die” continued to pop up at important moments over the ensuing decades.

“Colonists revived the cartoon in 1765 to protest the Stamp Act imposed by Great Britain, and the design came to furnish an effective rallying cry for unity throughout the colonies in their fight against the British Empire” during the American Revolution, according to the New York Public Library.

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.