Tag Archives: America 250

May 4, 2026

Philly Love

By daseger

We were in Pennsylvania for the last leg of our spring road trip, principally, but not exclusively, in Philadelphia. I’ve been to Philadelphia many times for different reasons, but this was definitely my favorite visit. It certainly wasn’t the weather—it was as unseasonably cold as it was elsewhere for most of the time we were there. Since we really slowed down and confined most of our touring, eating and drinking to the Old City it was most definitely the architecture, but it was also seeing so many people coming for the history, and being awed by it. Being a Revolutionary War tourist is really fun: I plan to keep on doing it all year long. There were crowds and crowds of color-coded t-shirt-wearing middle schoolers along with many foreign tourists in Independence National Historic Park, and the rangers handled it all in stride, with joy actually. We saw all the usual things, took in some special tours on historic preservation and taverns, made our own little Benjamin Franklin tour, visited the Museum of the American Revolution for the first time, and ate and drank at some great restaurants. The one thing I was a bit surprised about was all the construction going on—I assumed that projects would be completed for Philly’s big year—but it certainly did not detract from our experience. I’m looking forward to going back more often.

Just walking, beginning with Elfreth’s Alley. Philly seems to have figured out how to accomodate tourists and residents at the same time. Very clean streets, no huge walking tours (I saw no more than 20), no microphones.

Independence National Historic Park, including the Benjamin Franklin Museum:

I now have seen Declaration of Independence exhibits in SIX states and the These Truths exhibition at the American Philosophical is my favorite: it’s small but mighty, and manages to be incredibly dynamic by showing how the Declaration changes over time. This was certainly emphasized by the commissioned “Re-Declaration” project of Johanna Drucker, whose Declaration is a historical/contemporary study of the power of graphic design and punctuation. Then we were off to the Powel House, as it was on my punch list of mid-eighteenth-century mid-Atlantic Georgian houses. The home of Samuel Powel, the “Patriot Mayor” who served as the last colonial mayor of Philadelphia and the first “American” one, the highlight for me was the second-floor ballroom.

And finally, my first visit to the relatively new Museum of the American Revolution! There is an extended chronological exhibition which takes you through the Revolution in most of the building, a gallery for rotating exhibitions currently featuring a thoughtful examination of the Declaration of Independence’s “journey,” and then of course Washington’s Tent, the centerpiece of its collection. We ended up here on a rainy Saturday, so it was quite crowded, but the museum’s design seemed to handle everyone very well, and still provided a bit of intimacy in some of the galleries—I managed to be almost alone in the privateering gallery, sitting on a model ship with only a woman and her adorable baby in view (I was searching for Salem here and didn’t find much). The main exhibition had a very effective ending: with the amazing photographs of Revolution veterans and combatants from the mid-19th century on one wall, adjoining an assortment of mirrors surrounding the statement: MEET THE FUTURE of the American Revolution.

4 Comments | tags: America 250, American Philosophical Society, American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin, Commemorations, Declaration of Independence, Historic Architecture, Historic Interiors, Historic Preservation, Independence National Historic Park, Museum of the American Revolution, museums, Philadelphia, Spring Break | posted in Culture

March 30, 2026

Personal Declarations

By daseger

I would love to hear about Revolutionary exhibitions, programs and events sheduled for your area in this 250th anniversary year: 1776 is certainly alive and well in the Boston area! Since I’m on sabbatical, I’ve been able to attend quite a few happenings, and my favorite collaborative initiative is the Declarations Trail, on which four institutions, the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Public Library and Harvard University’s Houghton Library, have put more than a dozen copies of the Declaration of Independence on view, “originally created in different printings for different audiences” along with lots of other contextual objects. I’ve been to the first two exhibitions at the Athenaeum and MHS, and am looking forward to the opening of the last two later this spring.

Looking at, and thinking about, these paper Declarations has got me thinking about their popular and personal reception. I am very mindful of the words of historian J.L. Bell on his great blog Boston 1775: for the first generations of Americans it was a set of words, not an object they ever saw but at the same time, I know that one of the primary functions of print is to make things more permanent, and with tangible permanance comes possession as well as remembrance. Following that trail in my mind brought me to textile Declarations in general and Declaration handkerchiefs in particular–because there seems to have been a market for these words that you could literally put in your pocket. That market did not really develop until the first era of remembrance for the American Revolution—the 1820s, approaching its 50th anniversary with participants dying—but then it really took off. A great book (Threads of History. Americana Recorded on Cloth 1775 to the Present by Smithsonian curator Herbert R. Collins), an archived exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution, and numerous auction archives introduced me to the copperplate-printed handkerchiefs produced by William Gillespie & Sons in Scotland for the American market beginning in 1821. Produced in blue, black and red colorways, there’s a blue one coming up at auction next week at Eldred’s Auctions, and this spectacular red textile was the banner lot at an important Sotheby’s auction in 2023. A black (more sepia) handkerchief was sold by Swann Auction Galleries in 2023, and the Yale University Art Gallery has a similar one, as well as a centennial quilt from fifty years later sewn around the same: what a perfect object linking two eras of patriotic remembrance.

Textiles seem less ephemeral than paper, so I assume that the Declaration handkerchiefs of the 1820s were in demand as commemorative items, but it’s important to remember that this was also an era that the Declaration was being issued as separate broadside for the first time too–it was evolving from words into an object which could take several forms. The motifs that were featured on these textiles, including the “chain” of states, big Revolutionary moments, and the founding fathers, will reappear again and again. Fifty years later, the Centennial will inspire another wave of patriotic production, but those objects will be more familiar than introductory.