Subscribe
Apple | Spotify | Amazon |iHeart Radio | Castbox | Podcast Republic | RSS | Patreon | Discord | Facebook | IMDB
Podcast Transcript
Few dates carry as much significance in the United States as July 4th, but the celebration of the date has evolved over time.
July 4, 1776, was not a day of celebration across the country, as nobody outside of Philadelphia knew what had happened.
Just one year later, it was being celebrated and has been ever since for a quarter of a millennium.
Learn more about the history of the celebration of the Fourth of July on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The first 4th of July in 1776 wasn’t celebrated at all.
While Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence by late June, the Second Continental Congress still needed to pass Richard Henry Lee’s resolution of independence, which was passed on July 2nd.
As I covered in a previous episode, the vote on the Resolution of Independence by the Continental Congress can be considered the date on which independence was declared.
The language of the Declaration of Independence was agreed upon late in the afternoon on July 4, 1776. After consensus was reached, it needed to be printed at John Dunlap’s shop and distributed across the colonies.
It was first read in Philadelphia, then in New York on July 9th, and in Boston on July 18th. It didn’t reach Virginia until late July and the Southern colonies until August. When it was read aloud in the summer of 1776, it was met with roaring approval and celebration.
After it was read in New York, the crowd was so enthusiastic that they marched to a nearby of two ton statue of King George III, pulled it down, and had it melted into more than 40,000 units of ammunition for the war effort!
Full-on celebrations on July 4 would have to wait until 1777, when the holiday was commemorated as a day of remembrance. The reason July 4 was celebrated instead of July 2 is that it was the date on the document everyone read.
This holiday was more somber than its modern incarnations, as the Revolutionary War was still in full swing.
The Philadelphia Evening Post reported on the day’s proceedings, which included a ringing of the city’s bells and a 13-gun salute at a time of powder shortage. “Yesterday, the 4th of July, being the anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, was celebrated in this city with demonstrations of joy and festivity”
The Massachusetts state legislature officially recognized the day as a state holiday in 1781. The legislation called for “public rejoicing”, a bold move as the Revolutionary War was not over.
Rejoicing in 1781 meant local ministers reading the Declaration to their parishes, prayer, a feast amongst friends, and bonfires, as gunpowder at the time could not be spared.
The holiday’s importance grew significantly after war ended and the George Washington became president. The day was often marked by speeches amplifying the virtues of American democracy. Parades became a Fourth of July tradition, serving as a visual representation of the nation’s struggle and highlighting veterans’ sacrifice.
The early politics of the republic were quite acrimonious with politicians attacking one another with a ferocity that would make modern politicians blush.
The tension was so great that violence nearly erupted at competing events in New York in the wake of the widely condemned Jay’s Treaty during the festivities in the summer of 1795.
As the nation migrated to a system based on political parties, the factions that George Washington had warned Americans about in his 1796 farewell address had compromised the unity of the Fourth of July. In the wake of Washington’s retirement, these competing factions held separate celebrations.
Historian Michael Hattem highlighted the differences between the competing festivals, noting: “For (the Democratic-)Republicans, especially in the North, the parades would heavily feature artisans and workers, because they see themselves as the more popular, less elitist party. Processions in Federalist-controlled areas would have been organized in a much more hierarchical fashion (and) led by the most important people in town.”
The War of 1812 had significant implications for the commemoration of the Fourth of July. The outbreak of the War of 1812 fueled a new wave of nationalism that cemented the holiday in American identity and strengthened unity.
The war also changed how the event was commemorated. Before the War of 1812, cannons and guns were fired in salute on the Fourth of July. As they did during the Revolutionary War, local officials aimed to conserve gunpowder.
Instead of firing heavy artillery, they asked citizens to place candles in their windows for a quiet ‘public illumination’. For a public spectacle, they would detonate lower-grade powder packed into a tube with refuse iron filings, which, when ignited, shot a brief, brilliant shower of golden sparks into the night sky.
The War of 1812 also provided the soundtrack to the holiday. The attack on Fort McHenry, chronicled by Francis Scott Key in the Star-Spangled Banner, became a vital part of our nation’s collective identity.
A particularly somber July 4th occurred in 1826, when both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, which was also coincidentally the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The two men had fallen out of friendship after the 1800 election, only to reunite decades later.
A generation later, the national trauma of the Civil War interrupted the holiday’s impact. During the conflict, Confederate newspapers urged their readers to ignore the holiday. Stores stayed open, parades were canceled, and there were no fireworks.
At its core, the Fourth of July is a holiday about the creation of America, the union of the 13 colonies into a republic; these ideas ran antithetical to secession.
In 1863, the two most significant Union victories of the conflict converged on the Fourth of July. On the morning of July 4th, word spread that the Union Army had just repelled Robert E. Lee’s advance into the North at Gettysburg the day before.
Simultaneously, down south, General Ulysses S. Grant took total control of the Mississippi River as the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg officially surrendered, severing the Confederacy in two.
The grueling, forty-seven-day siege of Vicksburg was such a devastating blow that the local citizens refused to celebrate the Fourth of July for the next eighty-one years.
It wasn’t until after the Civil War in 1870 that the Fourth of July was declared an official Federal Holiday.
America’s Centennial celebration in 1876 provided an opportunity to turn the page and reclaim the unity that was central to the holiday. President Grant offered his vision in calling for “a day of reflection and gratitude.”
The Centennial celebration coincided with the end of Post-Civil War Reconstruction, a period marked by division and tension. Reconstruction had not solved the challenges in integrating former slaves into the United States despite the passage of Constitutional Amendments to advance their citizenship. Violence was breaking out across the South, including the Hamburg Massacre, which broke out in South Carolina over a July 4th parade.
The real story of the Centennial celebration emerged that summer as Philadelphia hosted the World’s Fair, called the Centennial Exposition. The fair captivated more than ten million people, and the organizers hoped to show a United States that had put the Civil War behind it.
Visitors were treated to innovations like the typewriter, Heinz ketchup, the telephone, and the mighty Corliss steam engine. One of the most spectacular aspects of the Centennial Exposition was the debut of the Statue of Liberty’s right arm and torch, which was scheduled to arrive in time for the holiday but was delayed until later in the summer. Fairgoers could climb inside the torch for a fee, with the proceeds helping to cover the cost of the statue’s massive base.
Yet, amidst all the glittering splendor of the Centennial Exposition, the World’s Fair had one definitive impact on the celebration of the Fourth of July: it transformed it into a truly national event.
During the 1876 Centennial, the nation’s attention turned squarely to Philadelphia, which hosted a grand jubilee. At the stroke of midnight, the city, already known for its famous bells, debuted the Centennial Bell, drawing tens of thousands of spectators into the streets.
But organizers weren’t done yet. Amidst the roaring train whistles and fireworks, they staged two symbolic gestures explicitly engineered to promote national unity.
To visually display the healing of a fractured country, Pennsylvania Governor and Union veteran John Hartranft stepped onto the stage to shake hands with Virginia Governor James Kemper, a man who had been wounded fighting for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. The famous handshake was met with an enthusiastic response from the crowd.
Moments later, the grandson of founding father Richard Henry Lee stepped forward to unroll and read the actual, original parchment of the Declaration of Independence. Lee’s reading marked the last time the famed document would ever leave Washington.
A century later, the 1976 Bicentennial was filled with exciting events that attracted national attention. Unlike in 1876, this celebration could truly be national thanks to television.
In New York City, the nation’s birthday was celebrated by Operation Sail. This tall-ship gala brought 16 historic tall ships up the Hudson River as an estimated 6 million people watched them sail past the Statue of Liberty.
Famed journalist Walter Cronkite summed up the power of Operation Sail when he said it was The grandest birthday party in the history of the world
The Bicentennial Commission of Pennsylvania pulled off the Bicentennial Wagon Train. The Wagon Train was a group of thousands of covered wagons crossing the country from West to East. As historian Marc Stein noted, it was, quote, “Manifest Destiny in reverse.”
The wagons, organized and run by volunteers, even tried to stick to historic westward-migration routes whenever possible as they converged on Valley Forge on July 3, with a festival planned for the 4th.
Ross Rowland Jr., a train enthusiast and successful commodities broker, thought it would be fitting to honor America’s Bicentennial with The Freedom Train. The train was a traveling museum of American artifacts, including George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, that toured the 48 contiguous states for nearly two years.
Those who were children during the bicentennial undoubtedly remember the wildly popular ABC educational series “Schoolhouse Rock,” which was rebranded for the Bicentennial as “America Rock.” America Rock briefly abandoned the clever 3-minute spots on grammar and math and replaced them with patriotic videos of American history.
With features focusing on Battles of the Revolution, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, America Rock brought the Bicentennial directly to children.
The United States government also fueled the celebration by creating commemorative pieces that instantly became collector’s items. Leading the charge, the U.S. Postal Service delighted stamp collectors as it celebrated the Bicentennial by printing more than one hundred individual commemorative stamps as part of its historic American Bicentennial Series.
Not to be outdone, the U.S. Mint ran a nationwide design competition to redesign the reverse sides of three specific denominations: the quarter, the half dollar, and the one-dollar coin. The winning designs featured a dual date of 1776–1976.
These new issues celebrated the nation’s milestone by featuring a colonial drummer boy, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell resting on the moon. The coins remain incredibly common, as the mint produced more than 1.6 billion quarters.
The coins and stamps allowed everyone to take part in the festivities, even if you couldn’t get to New York for Operation Sail or the Wagon Train didn’t go through your town.
It was nearly impossible to drive down a street in Anytown, USA, without spotting American flags on every front porch, as the Bicentennial inspired a massive wave of national unity and patriotism.
The event was not without critics. Critics panned the Bicentennial as the ‘Buy-Centennial’ as corporations capitalized on the patriotic enthusiasm by branding nearly every product, from t-shirts to soda cans to the famed Poulan red, white, and blue Spirit of 76’ commemorative chainsaw.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, or its Semiquincentennial, a term that does not fall off the tongue, we will be celebrating in many of the same ways we have in the past.
There are efforts by corporations to brand products with patriotic symbols and flags, and there will certainly be fireworks in nearly every municipality in the country, not to mention the private pyrotechnics, which form the backbone of a multi-billion-dollar industry.
The Washington Mall is expected to host a world-record fireworks display this July 4th, featuring a 40-minute show with an estimated 851,000 fireworks.
If you are around 50 years from now, you will get to enjoy the tricentennial, which will probably involve robots and a spaceship parade on the moon.
The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.
Research and writing for this episode were provided by Joel Hermansen.
Today’s review comes from listener Omomaha on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write:
Exceptional
Perfect snack-sized podcast for curious people! My absolute favorite. Thanks, Gary, but now I’m trying to figure out how to sneak defenestration into a conversation.
Thanks, Omomaha! It’s really simple: just tell someone that if they don’t know what defenestration means, then they are worthy of defenestration.
Remember, if you leave a review of the podcast on any of the major podcast apps, you can have it read on the show.
