Biography:

Franklin D. Edmunds combined his architectural career with equally successful ventures as politician and clubman. His father, Henry Reeves Edmunds, was president of the Philadelphia Board of Public Education from 1902 until 1917, and this relationship affected Edmunds's prospects as a young architect. F. D. Edmunds graduated from Central High School in 1893 and from the University of Pennsylvania with his degree in architecture in 1897. In 1898 he returned to the University following a summer in Europe in order to take post-graduate courses and in that same year became a draftsman with D. K. Boyd, a position which lasted until 1901. During the years with Boyd, Edmunds continued his studies by taking life drawing and costume classes at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art.